Joe Baines remembered

(CBS) NEWARK, N.J. Relatives say 19-year old Army Private Joe Luis Baines joined the military because he felt he had no other choice.

"That's the reason he joined the army -- to try to get us out of here. That was his dream, to get us out of Newark," Baines' mother Yolanda Torres told CBS 2 News.

That dream ended this weekend when army officials told the family Baines was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

Upon hearing the news, Baines' brother James was devastated. "I started crying. That's how I reacted. I don't know what to do now," James said.

Torres says she still remembers their last telephone calls,and recalls her son sounded scared. He had recently carried a fallen soldier out of battle and knew he could be next. "He was like, 'I'm calling you now because we're about to raid the town the boy was killed in,' and he said basically, 'I'm calling you just in case I don't call you back -- you know what happened,'" she said.

Baines was no stranger to adversity. He attended a high school for troubled youth in Pennsylvania. After graduation, he came home, but trouble found him quickly. His mother says he got into a fight, and a few weeks later he was shot in the leg just a few blocks from his home.

Torres didn't like the idea of her son joining the army. She says she was "against it 100 percent."

But she says for her son, a tour of duty in iraq suddenly sounded like a walk in the park, especially if it meant a new start for his family.

"I'm proud of what he did, because that was his dream. That's all he ever talked about -- his mama," Torres said.

Baines was just 19-years old.

From WCBS 2

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