Losing a best friend to the ravages of war is an experience Sgt. Douglas Cockrell Jr. wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.
Cockrell’s platoon had experienced many close calls during its time in Iraq, and the sergeant was proud he would return to the United States with the 18 men he had brought overseas. However, the fate of Cockrell’s best friend, Sgt. Travis Cooper, turned out differently.
One July day in 2005, Cockrell received a phone call from his colonel and knew he must inform his men their fellow soldier had been killed after an enemy’s vehicle explosive detonated at a checkpoint.
“Why Travis?” he thought.
“(Cooper) was with us and he got assigned to another unit,” Cockrell said. “We used to sit and look at it like, maybe if he was with us he never would’ve gotten killed, but you don’t know how the Lord works.”
Sgts. Cockrell and Cooper had been friends for about five years. The pair hailed from neighboring counties in northeast Mississippi — Cockrell from Lowndes, Cooper from Noxubee — and served together in the Mississippi Army National Guard when deployed to Iraq in 2005.
Cockrell remained in Iraq until 2006.
“It was rough at first,” Cockrell said of his time deployed after Cooper’s death. “But you had to put your mindset to ‘this is a job, this is a mission that we have to do, and we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do to get home.’ You had your good days, and you had your bad days.”
Cockrell’s story is not unlike the stories of many men and women who serve their country in combat.
“If you think about it, we’re thousands and thousands of miles away from home, but it makes you, as an American, feel blessed for what we have,” Cockrell said.
Cockrell served in the Mississippi National Guard for 20 years and is now a warehouse manager and delivery driver for Motion Industries and a legal officer for Columbus’ American Legion. He lives in Columbus, where he and his wife have raised two children.
Cockrell said he thinks of Cooper often. He wonders where his friend would be if he were here today.
“On Memorial Day, you actually sit and think about friends, family, fellow soldiers that you have lost or ones who have paid their lives to serve our country,” Cockrell said. “Think about not to grieve, but to honor.”
Honoring the Fallen
Columbus Air Force Base remembered fallen service men and women last week in the days leading up to Memorial Day, as it added the name of Capt. Jordan Pierson to its memorial wall.
Pierson, an alumnus of the United States Air Force Academy and a CAFB-trained pilot, died in a plane crash during his second deployment to Afghanistan in October 2015. His friends and family gathered outside the Richard “Gene” Smith Plaza on base Thursday afternoon to honor Pierson’s memory.
With emotion in his voice, Col. Douglas Gosney, commander of the 14th Flying Training Wing, spoke of Pierson and encouraged visitors to remember the significance of Monday’s national holiday.
“For many, Memorial Day marks the beginning of summer,” Gosney said. “But let us not forget the true meaning of this day … they (fallen service men and women) deserve the support and gratitude of those of us left behind.”
During the unveiling of Pierson’s name on the memorial wall, Lt. Col. Joseph Framptom said much could be learned from the captain and his dedication to others. Framptom, who was stationed at Afghanistan’s Dyess Air Force Base with Pierson during his first deployment, said Pierson was on track to become an instructor pilot before his fatal accident.
“First of all, always strive to be the best you can be, because Jordan did. Always learn as much as you can about the mission you’re tasked to do, bring your ‘A’ game every day, because Jordan did. And finally, in our business, we can never lose sight of the fact that sometimes even very simple mistakes can have tragic consequences,” Framptom said.
Pierson’s name was the 85th to be engraved on the plaza memorial wall, which was dedicated in October 1996. The monument recognizes all service men and women from CAFB who have died in military aviation. The earliest names date to 1972.
With the United States’ flag flying at half-staff in front of hundreds of visitors and military personnel, Thursday’s ceremony concluded with a 21-gun salute, a rendition of the traditional military hymn “Taps” and a T-1A flyover.
“When student pilots come through Columbus, they never think they’re going to end up on this wall,” said Maj. Patrick Weekly, a friend of Pierson’s. “Each one of those names has a story, and today was about honoring (Pierson’s) story and passing it on to the next generation of pilots coming through.”
National holiday, local beginning
At the corner of “Soldier Row” and “Magnolia Avenue” in Friendship Cemetery, the Columbus Lowndes Chamber of Commerce Friday recognized the significance of Memorial Day and its historic roots in The Friendly City.
“About 20 different towns across the country claim to be the origin of Memorial Day — Columbus is one of them,” said Rufus Ward, local historian and Columbus native, who spoke at the morning ceremony.
According to the Library of Congress, in April 1866 — roughly a year after the end of the Civil War — four Columbus women who have come to be known as the “Decoration Day Ladies” decorated the graves of over a thousand Union and Confederate soldiers buried in Friendship Cemetery.
Their unbiased act inspired national news recognition and “The Blue and the Grey,” a poem by New York judge Francis Miles Finch, and landed the four women in the Mississippi Hall of Fame.
“Many people know Memorial Day was started here in Columbus, but as far as I know, we don’t do much to recognize it,” said Lisa James, Columbus-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce president. “Our ceremony is about the history in Columbus and what Memorial Day means to us.”
According to James, this year’s celebration was the Chamber’s inaugural Memorial Day ceremony, and she hopes to make it a tradition.
Starkville will host its own Memorial Day ceremony Monday in front of the Oktibbeha County Courthouse at 11 a.m. The public is invited.
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