Remembering Sgt Jeremiah Holmes ~ NH Hero

Remembering Sgt Jeremiah Holmes, the first New Hampshire National Guardsman killed in Ramadi, Iraq on 3-29-2004 when a bomb rocked the truck in which he was riding in a convoy.

He was a member of the Army National Guard 744th Transportation Company with headquarters in Hillsboro, N.H., and detachments in Claremont and Somersworth. His unit was deployed for training in late December, and sent to Iraq in February for 18 months.

During the departure ceremony two weeks before Christmas, Holmes’ wife, Kimberly, held their infant son, Kaleb. When asked how she felt about his deployment, she told the newspaper, “Not good. I feel bad for the baby.” Holmes and his wife had been selected by Foster’s Sunday Citizen for a series of stories showing how one family copes with a military deployment.

“I’m worried about losing my best friend and not being able to see the person I’ve spent every day with for a year and a half,” Kimberly Holmes told the Dover newspaper in January. The day before her husband’s death, she was in the process of setting up a second interview.

Holmes served on active duty from 1994 to 1999, when he joined the New Hampshire Guard.

“Jay was just a wonderful individual, a keeper,” said Patsy Koelker, a neighbor, using the name everyone knew him by. “He was kind and caring,” she said, and if there was an errand to be done, he was “at the head of the line.”

To Remember is to Honor….