Family, friends say goodbye to Fort Benning soldier

A funeral service for Sgt. Lakeshia M. Bailey of Fort Benning was held Wednesday afternoon at the Follow Me Chapel on post.

Close to 200 family members and friends attended the afternoon ceremony, which was followed by a brief service at Fort Mitchell Cemetery.

Bailey, 23, a 2004 graduate of Spencer High School, was one of two soldiers killed in Iraq on March 8 of injuries sustained when the vehicle she was in turned over as they were returning to Contingency Operating Station Delta from An Numaniyah Military Training Base.

Sgt. Aaron M. Arthur, 25, of Lake City, S.C., also died in the non-combat related accident.

Both soldiers were heavy vehicle drivers assigned to the 203rd Brigade Support Battalion, attached to the 1st Battalion, 10th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division.

On Wednesday, Bailey’s family held one another and cried as a seven-soldier rifle team fired three volleys each into the sky and then a lone bugler played taps. Two folded flags, including the one that had accompanied Bailey’s casket from Iraq, which were placed in the hands of her parents and husband. “I’ve been in the Army 20 years and I’ve lost a lot of people and it never gets any easier when you lose people,” said Sgt. 1st Class Allen Battle, who served with Bailey on her first deployment to Iraq in 2007 and attended her funeral. “I’m really going to miss her.”

Battle said he’ll always remember the months he spent with her guarding prisoners at Camp Bucca in Iraq and how she never backed down from what he called “Iraq’s worst criminals.”

“When I say tough, she would take grown men down to the ground,” Battle said. “That’s how strong she was and that’s how committed she was to her job.”

She also had a great sense of humor, Battle said.

“She was always smiling,” he said. “She was just full of life all the time.”

The flag-draped casket containing Bailey’s body was flown Monday into Lawson Army Airfield from Dover Air Force Base.

Members of the 1-10 Field Artillery Regiment held their own memorial ceremony for Bailey and Arthur on March 12 at Forward Operating Base Kalsu in Iraq.