“There is no greater love that can be displayed than for a person to lay down their life for others,” said a chaplain six years ago over the coffin, draped in a large American flag. Airman 1st Class LeeBernard E. Chavis was carried toward the plane by six pallbearers, looked on by the 18 distorted faces of members of Chavis’s flight, who stood in two neat rows facing the casket.
On Oct. 14, 2006, Chavis, 21 years old and a member of the 824th Security Forces Squadron at Moody AFB, Ga., was killed by sniper fire while he tried to keep civilians away from a suspected bomb in the streets near Baghdad.
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