Joshua D. Sheppard slain by sniper

QUINTON — Army Spc. Joshua Sheppard wanted to promise his mother that he'd make it back to Oklahoma and stay.

"He had promised me he would come back,” said Julie Young, Sheppard's mother. "He wasn't sure he could keep that promise.”

Sheppard, described by his mother as a "peacemaker,” was killed Friday during a gun battle in Baghdad, Iraq. Sheppard, 22, and members of his patrol encountered an enemy using small arms fire, Young said. The death remains under investigation by the military.

Sheppard was a member of the 642nd Engineer Support Company out of Fort Drum, N.Y. He began his tour in Iraq on Sept. 15. He had been issued a four-day pass for the Christmas holiday, but was told to he was needed as senior operator on a mission, said Young, who talked to her son a day before he was killed.

She had expected to talk to him Christmas, but instead got news he had died.

"He's a good boy,” Young said. "Everybody loved him. I'm just amazed by the outpouring of love we've received from the community.”

Sheppard, a 2003 graduate of Quinton High School, enlisted in the Army when he was 19. He was hoping to learn skills that would allow him to come back to his community and work as a contractor with heavy equipment, Young said.

But his real love was hunting and fishing.

"He was a die-hard Okie,” Young said. "He always said he was coming back to Oklahoma and he was never going to leave again. I guess he doesn't have to now.”

Sheppard was quiet, but never met a stranger and had compassion for nearly everyone he met. While in elementary school, Sheppard told his mother he wanted to be a preacher of the "gospel of love, that's what he called it,” Young said.

For career day that year, he dressed up in a white dress shirt, black pants and red tie and tucked a Bible under his arm.

"For a bashful little boy, that was a big step,” Young said. "He was polite as the day is long. He was every parent's dream of a good kid.”

Sheppard didn't mind dressing up if the occasion warranted it, but he was most comfortable in a flannel shirt and jeans.

"That's all he'd ever wear,” Young said. "I used to have to make flannel shirts for him when he was little.”

Outdoor hobbies

Sheppard loved the outdoors and enjoyed the woods and lakes of southeastern Oklahoma.

"His favorite thing was fishing. He could eat his weight in fish and wild game,” Young said. "He liked squirrel and dumplings, fried rabbit, deer jerky. He's redneck to the bone. He loved being outside.”

Sheppard, who was single, was second in a string of five boys. Although he wasn't the oldest, he was often the leader, his mother said.

"He was really a peacemaker,” Young said. "He was No. 2, but a lot of times he took the role of No. 1. He was real subtle, but it was his nature to be a peacemaker.”

Sheppard's older brother is also in the Army and a younger brother is in the Marines, Young said.

Joshua Sheppard will be awarded a purple heart and a bronze star posthumously. Funeral arrangements are pending, his mother said.

From the Oklahoman