Boone County : Devoted soldier merits Guard’s loftiest laurels
Posted on Sunday, July 30, 2006
VALLEY SPRINGS - Kim Campbell wrote a letter to her son, Arkansas National Guard Spc. Derek James Plowman, before he left in January to serve in Iraq.
In it, she told him to stay true to himself, get the most out of his experience there and come home to her safely.
On Saturday, sections of Campbell's letter were read to the more than 200 mourners who gathered at Plowman's memorial service at Valley Springs High School. Plowman, 20, was killed July 20 after he was shot by an "accidental discharge of a weapon by another soldier,"said his stepfather, Andrew Campbell, in a phone interview Friday with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
A news release from the Arkansas National Guard said the cause of Plowman's death remained under investigation.
Plowman returned to Iraq three days before his death after a two-week visit to Arkansas and Florida.
"Derek made a choice in the middle of his senior year of high school that he was going to join the National Guard,"Andrew Campbell told mourners at the memorial service Saturday. "It was what he wanted to do more than anything."
Mourners wept as a video tribute to Plowman was played and Arkansas National Guard officials praised the soldier. Members of the Patriot Guard Riders - a national group of volunteers who honor service- men killed in the line of duty - held American flags as the hearse and family members left the school grounds.
Plowman served as a military police officer and was assigned to Battery C, 1 st Battalion, 142 nd Fires Brigade. Arkansas National Guard officials attending the funeral described the young soldier as a good worker who always bore more than his share of the burden.
"Derek was the type of soldier that our nation needs,"Maj. Gen. Ron Chastain, adjutant general of the Arkansas National Guard, said during the service.
"He was one who wore this uniform proudly."
Andrew Campbell described his stepson as an outgoing person who made friends everywhere he went. During his recent trip home, Plowman used his time visiting all of his family and friends.
"He didn't want to sit at home and play video games and watch television,"Andrew Campbell said Friday. "He wanted to be on the road seeing all of his friends. We've been amazed to find out how many friends he had."
Spc. Ben Baxter, an Arkansas National Guardsman who was serving in Iraq with Plowman, said the young soldier was always there to talk with him when he needed encouragement.
"Derek would give you anything you asked for,"Baxter said in an e-mail Thursday to the Democrat-Gazette. "He would do anything you asked him to do. Not just some of the time, [but ] every time. If anyone ever needed to get a laugh [they ] could go see Plowman. Laughing is what keeps us going in this place."
Baxter, who lives in Bella Vista when not on active duty, said he was one of the first to arrive, minutes after Plowman was shot July 20.
"I was calm because he was calm,"Baxter wrote. "I had not cried in six years. When I had found out he didn't make it through surgery, I cried enough tears to cover all six of those years.
"I am a soldier, and it is not in my personality to cry, but this was my friend, my brother. There was nothing I could have done but take a knee, hang my head and cry."Plowman was the 17 th Arkansas Guardsman killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom and the 42 nd soldier with Arkansas roots to die in the U. S. conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was the first Fires Brigade member to die during the current war effort. "Derek was a laid-back, easygoing soldier until the times got tough,"Baxter said. "Then he turned into hard-charging Spc. Plowman. He never quit until the job was done. "Every time I sit down with my kids and my grandkids and tell them about my time in Iraq in the war, I will tell them about Spc. Derek Plowman."
To contact this reporter: sfitzgerald@arkansasonline. com
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