Rhode Island soldier, 25, dies in Iraq blast (Moises Jazmin)

He had traveled to Baghdad thousands of miles away from this city block on the South Side, where he'd grown up with his family in an apartment house on a closely packed side street.

Sgt. Moises Jazmin was barely 25, a young man from a large family in the inner city, who left Central High School before graduation and joined the Army before he was old enough to vote.

Yesterday morning, the Pentagon confirmed that Jazmin was one of four soldiers who died Sunday when a roadside bomb exploded near their military vehicle in an Iraqi village called Taji, about 20 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Army officials told his family about his death Monday morning. His mother took to her bed in despair, one sister said. The rest of Jazmin's family -- his four sisters and three brothers -- are reeling from the news and awaiting the return of his body.

"I don't know that we'll ever recover from this," said Ruth Jazmin, 30, one of his sisters.

Read the rest at the Providence Journal