Shannon Weaver remembered

Desiree Weaver was making her way back to Fort Richardson, Alaska, earlier this week to begin preparations for her husband’s return from Iraq this July. She was in transit from her mother’s home in Missouri and had stopped in South Dakota.

Oddly, her mother called and wanted to meet her there to finish the trip with her. She agreed.

When they met at the airport, Weaver was not just greeted with a traveling companion but with the crushing news that her husband was dead.

Staff Sgt. Shannon Weaver, a Polk County native, was killed Monday by a roadside bomb in southern Baghdad.

The last message Desiree Weaver received from her husband was just before he left on the mission that took his life.

“I’m going on mission. Stay safe. I love you.”

Weaver, a 28-year-old soldier on his second tour in Iraq, was on a mission to disarm explosive devices like the one that killed him, according to his wife.

He was a combat engineer who joined the Army in 1997 and was based at Fort Richardson, Alaska, in January 2005.

“He usually did things like the demolition of bridges,” Desiree Weaver said. But this time he was to search for and disarm roadside bombs to make sure other convoys coming through the area didn’t get hit, she explained.

Weaver, who was also a squad leader, had told his wife of five years to not make a lot of plans for them when he returned because he was afraid that something might happen to him before his July break.

“He didn’t have a good feeling about this tour,” Desiree Weaver said as she thought back to his departure for this tour. His job was particularly dangerous. Volatile conditions continued to increase in the area he was working, she explained.

Weaver was an experienced soldier having served in three other tours of duty, one in the Dominican Republic, one in Kosovo in 2002 and a previous tour in Iraq.

Weaver was part of the initial push when the war started, his wife explained. “He was one of the first soldiers to cross the lines.”

The Weavers had plans to move back close to Cedartown to be near his grandparents who live in Borden Springs, Ala.

“We had bought some land in Gadsden and planned to build a house and start a family there.”

The Piedmont, Ala., High School graduate will be buried at Shiloh Baptist Church in Esom Hill, which he attended while living with his grandparents for several years.

Gammage Funeral Home has charge of the arrangements. It could take weeks before his body is returned to the states, his wife said.

From the Rome News-Tribune

Related Link:
Shannon V. Weaver dies of 'wounds suffered when multiple improvised explosive devices detonated near his vehicle'