Spec Michael Edward Yates, Jr.
Born on Sep. 5, 1989 in Baltimore, MD
Died on May 11, 2009 in Baghdad, Iraq
Specialist Michael E. Yates Jr. of Federalsburg, Maryland, attended Colonel Richardson High School and was not fond of bookwork, he like doing things with his hands. Sports, hunting, motorcycles and cars were his interests. He once persuaded a group of friends to jump off a pier over the Choptank River. The friends were nervous about the leap, but Michael wasn’t. He jumped in and then egged on his friends until they did the same. He was nice to everybody, so everybody loved him. Not finding a lot of options in life to fulfill his obligations and goals in life, he obtained his GED and enlisted in the Army 2 years ago. He very much liked being a soldier, working as a Calvary Scout assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 172nd Infantry Brigade, based out of Grafenwoehr, Germany. Mike was exactly the kind of trooper needed in the scout platoon; a scrapper who wasn’t afraid to lock horns. Mike was deployed to Iraq and had obtained a month-long leave home for April 2009. When he returned to Iraq, he found the stress of being separated from his large, close-knit family back home, especially his young son, to be something he needed help with. Although he liked his military service, he didn’t like being in Iraq, a place he called “a screwed up country they call Iraq.” He was getting the help he needed at the military stress clinic at Camp Liberty stress-counseling center near Baghdad when on May 11 he was one of 5 military personnel killed during shooting rampage by an Army soldier at the center. Michael was promoted posthumously from PFC to Specialist and awarded the Bronze Star.
Burial was in Maryland Veteran’s Cemetery in Hurlock, Maryland
The Spec Michael Edward Yates, Jr. by Freedom Remembered, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
