Mother gets dreaded visit - GI killed in Iraq

David Montero, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 8, 2007 at midnight

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She thought it was the 5- year-old neighbor coming to play with the cat, so Kei Torres didn't think much of the doorbell ring.

Her friend had flown up from Houston to Torres' home in Washington state and they were going to see the Seattle Mariners game that night. Torres had one shoe on and was holding the other.

Ring.

"I was looking down, expecting to see this young boy. When I opened the door, I was still looking down and I saw four knees in green pants," Torres said. "And it's like you know immediately something is wrong.

"I brought my eyes up and the two soldiers are standing there and I know they're only there to tell me he's gone, but you can't wrap your hands or your mind around it. It just seemed surreal. I kept telling myself, 'I know I'm going to hear from him.' "

But she wasn't. Instead, she was told her son, Cpl. Jason LeFleur, 28, had been killed Saturday by a roadside bomb near Hawr Rajab in Iraq, according to Army officials at his home base of Fort Richardson in Alaska.

Torres said LeFleur, who enlisted in the Army in 2005 while living in Colorado, decided to join a year before signing up. She said he wanted to get in shape first.

"He made a decision, spent a whole year in pursuit of that dream and then he acted on it," Torres said. "I was very proud of that."

LeFleur was born in Houston and was reared in Lockhart in central Texas. He showed an aptitude for math and picked up playing the drums while in high school.

Torres said he eventually decided to go to college at Ole Miss and studied math there for two years before moving to Durango in 2000 - drawn there mostly for the skiing, his mother said. His father, Chuck LeFleur, already was living there.

He worked for the city of Durango in the recycling department and also held a job at Home Depot before deciding in 2004 to join the Army.

She said her son would have liked to have stayed in Durango, but between the desire to join the Army and the high cost of living there, five years would be all he could do.

Torres said she figured he eventually would work his way back to Texas. "We're all proud Texans," she said.

And proud Longhorns fans, too. She said LeFleur was fanatical about the University of Texas teams - which fed -into his love of sports. He also liked bluegrass music, Cajun food and could dominate trivia games involving sports and music.

But Torres said he was also a very private and serious person.

"I always used to say he was born a 40-year-old Republican," Torres said. "He wasn't afraid to tell you what he thought. And if you asked him what he thought, you'd have to prepare for the answer because he would tell you exactly what he thought, not what you wanted to hear."

LeFleur is survived by his parents and sister Megan LeFleur of Austin, Texas.

In lieu of flowers the family requests donations be made in his name to Operation Homefront, or to the Spartan Heroes. Operation Homefront is a nonprofit that supports families of deployed troops - operationhome front.net/donate.htm. Spartan Heroes is part of the Spartan Memorial Foundation honoring fallen soldiers of the the 25th Infantry Division at Fort Richardson: spartanhe roes.org.

2 Carson troops killed

Two Fort Carson soldiers from Tennessee were killed over the weekend in Baghdad.

Spc. Justin R. Blackwell, 27, and Pvt. Jeremy S. Bohannon, 18, were both assigned to the 59th Military Police Company, 759th Military Police Battalion, 89th Military Police Brigade at Fort Carson.

The defense department said they died Sunday from "enemy indirect fire."

Blackwell, who was from Paris, Tenn., had joined the military in May 2000. Bohannon, who was from Bon Aqua, Tenn., joined the Army on Nov. 2.

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