Ashley Laine Henderson Huff honored, laid to rest

U.S. Army 1st Lt. Ashley Laine Henderson Huff was a freshman in college when the World Trade Center was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.

“She watched the towers fall and signed up for ROTC that fall at University of Georgia,” her father, Mark Henderson, said Sunday.

A Covington native who spent much of her childhood in Baton Rouge, the 23-year-old Huff died Sept. 19 in Mosul, Iraq, when a bomb detonated near her patrol.

Huff, who was training Iraqi police, was buried Saturday in Georgia.

As a child, Huff attended Heritage Preparatory School in Baton Rouge from first to fourth grade and Silverside Academy until she was in the seventh grade, when the family moved to Belle Mead, N.J. She graduated in May 2004 from the University of Georgia, where she received her commission through the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps.

Henderson and his wife, Janet, are both Louisiana natives. Janet Henderson grew up in Baton Rouge, and Mark Henderson’s family is from Livingston Parish and Zachary. Huff’s grandmother, Joyce Oliver, still lives in Baton Rouge.

Oliver said it seems like her granddaughter earned every ribbon possible, and noted that the outpouring of support has been overwhelming.

“There’s just so much to say about her,” said Oliver, who spoke by phone from Georgia.

Huff received the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the Army Service Ribbon. She was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Combat Action Badge.

“We have deep roots in Louisiana, and my daughter loved Baton Rouge,” Mark Henderson said Sunday afternoon from his home in Georgia, a day after burying his oldest child.

Huff had been married to her husband Brian a little over a year, Henderson said. She had been in Iraq since December 2005.

Read the rest at the Advocate

Related Link:
Georgia soldier killed in Iraq (Ashley Henderson)