Chad J. Vollmer dies of injuries from I.E.D.

GRAND RAPIDS -- As he left Grand Rapids for the U.S. Army National Guard, preparing to serve in Iraq, Chad J. Vollmer realized he hadn't said goodbye to a neighbor he called Aunt Jill.

On a cell phone, he said he would be right back. She figured he meant months, and said a prayer. A few minutes later, he pulled into her driveway on Plymouth Avenue NE.

"He started sobbing, I started sobbing -- I said, 'I just love you so much.' "

Jill Skinner had watched Vollmer, always an active little boy, grow into a young man who didn't have to be asked to help out around her house.

Earlier this week, she watched his mother, Sandy, who saw the government vehicle parked outside, slam her front door shut -- her only protection against the terrible news coming her way.

"She knew. She knew," Skinner said Wednesday.

Vollmer, 24, a Grand Rapids Central High School graduate and an Army specialist, was among three Michigan soldiers killed Saturday in Salman Pak, Iraq, when an improvised roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle during a combat operation.

From the Press