Darrell Shipp remembered

HARLINGEN — Army Pfc. Darrell Wayne Shipp, 25, had high octane in his blood and was the proud parent of one baby — his car.

He drag raced at the San Antonio Speedway and on public roads, most recently in his beloved 2000 black Ford Mustang. He played bass guitar in a punk band at Sam's Burger Joint and the White Rabbit.

When heavy rain turned the Iraqi ground to mud, he relished pounding through the rough terrain in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and when it was broken down, a Humvee.

Shipp was in a Humvee when a roadside bomb killed him Wednesday in Baghdad, casting a pall of grief and short bouts of anger among friends and relatives in San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley.

His mother, Regina, who works at a Kmart, said from the family's home here that she blamed President Bush for his death and "for everybody that has been killed."

"He needs to show up at our son's funeral service and everyone else's so he would know how he is hurting families," said his father, Doyle, a mechanic.

Shipp was their only son. His experiences and interests were on display around their home, including a racing trophy and a clock beside the computer in the living room that had a little sign next to it: "Iraq Time."

His parents frequently corresponded with him by Internet and Webcam.

"I was on the computer every night talking to him. I'd be up until 4," his mother said. "If he wasn't online, I'd be waiting for him to be online."

Shipp grew up in and around the Alamo City, attending school in Marion and at Roosevelt High School before finishing in Harlingen in 2000.

After graduation, he moved back to San Antonio and was a used-car salesman and manager of the meat department at an Albertson's grocery. Before he joined the Army in 2005, he was a waiter at an Olive Garden restaurant off U.S. 281.

"He thrived under stress. He would laugh at it and had fun," said Jimmy Smith, 24, one of Shipp's best friends in San Antonio and a fellow band member of the group Celebrate Tuesday.

It's unclear why he signed up for the military, but one of his four sisters, Donna Rosales, who is in the Army Reserve and may go overseas soon, said it changed him for the better.

"I think it did him some good," said Rosales, 23. "He grew up a lot, thinking about his life, thinking about his future."

Apparently he had plans to continue racing. A high-performance clutch that he'd ordered off the Internet from Iraq had arrived in the mail earlier this week and was in a box on the living room floor of his parents' home. Scheduled for leave in a couple of months, he wanted to supercharge the engine.

"He thought there was nothing better than scaring the crap out of someone," said Smith, who trusted Shipp as a driver and described him as "one in a million, not because he was my best friend, but because he was."

The two used to race the turnaround at Loop 1604 and Nacogdoches. Family and friends said he rarely lost, except for one race with the Harlingen police shortly before he deployed in October.

Smith, who was in the car that night, said a Trans Am pulled up beside them and the driver wanted to run. They screamed to repeated starts and stops for about eight traffic lights.

"The brakes were smoking, and the clutch was smoking, but we won," he said.

When a patrol car emerged, "we thought we got away from them, but they radioed to someone else," Smith said.

Shipp spent the night in jail. Shortly after, on his birthday, he was hugging his family goodbye as he left for Iraq.

His father recalled that moment, standing near his kitchen counter covered with photographs and a brief casualty report that gave few details about the death.

"I just remember him right here," he said, reflecting on that last hug, eyes welling. "I didn't think he was ever gonna turn loose. He just kept hugging and hugging and crying, and then I started to cry."

From the Express News

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