ECRU, Miss.-
A 21-year-old U.S. Army private from north Mississippi has been killed in Iraq, the Department of Defense confirmed Wednesday.
“Everyone is very upset,” said Patricia Mayo of Myrtle, the grandmother of Pvt. Barry Mayo of Ecru.
The Department of Defense in a statement Wednesday said Mayo and two other soldiers died March 5 in Baqubah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their unit.
Mayo was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. Ryan D. Russell, 20, of Elm City, N.C., and Blake Harris, 22, of Pueblo, Colo., died with Mayo.
Family members said Mayo’s mother, Kimberly Yarbrough, and her husband, live in Texas. His brother, Andy Lee Mayo, is a Myrtle resident.
Becky Mayo of Ecru, the soldier’s stepmother, said military officials told the family Tuesday that her stepson’s body would be flown to a military facility in Dover, Del., on Thursday “and they would be getting him ready for a military funeral.”
“They said they would call us back and tell us when to meet the airplane at the airport in Tupelo to get his body,” she said.
Mayo attended North Pontotoc High School and had one semester at Northeast Mississippi Community College before entering the Army.
“He first went over to Iraq when he just turned 18,” Patricia Mayo said. “He had come back home and had been back for two weeks before he went back on Feb. 20, his 21st birthday.”
Becky Mayo said her stepson had thought he would be coming home after three years of service before his unit was told last August that they would be going to Iraq. She said during his return home last month, Mayo had expressed hope he would be out this August.
Family members said they had talked Tuesday with Mayo’s mother to discuss funeral arrangements. They said a funeral home in New Albany would handle services and burial would be at Union Hill United Methodist Church in the Myrtle area.
Another serviceman from the area, Marine Cpl. Clifton B. Mounce, 22, was killed earlier in Iraq. Mounce, who went by the name Blake, of Pontotoc, Miss., died July 14, 2005, when an explosive struck his vehicle near Trebil. He was based at Camp Lejeune.
With Mayo’s death, The Associated Press has counted at least 51 soldiers with strong Mississippi ties to have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One, Staff Sgt. Christopher L. Robinson, died in Afghanistan while the others died in Iraq.
