Town mourns fallen soldier

CALDWELL, Idaho – This small southwestern Idaho town mourned a fallen U.S. soldier for the second time in less than a year on Friday at the funeral of Army Pfc. Jacob Allcott, 21, who was killed by a roadside bomb near Baghdad on April 22 along with three other soldiers.

Ten months ago, Cpl. Carrie French, 19, a member of the Idaho National Guard, was killed in Kirkuk, Iraq, when the truck she was driving hit a roadside bomb.

Allcott had graduated from Caldwell High School in 2002, French in 2004.

In this agricultural town just north of the Snake River, in some of America’s best sugar-beet country, residents said they were heartbroken by the deaths of two of their brightest young people in such a short amount of time.

Allcott was the son of the former Caldwell fire chief; French was a cheerleader who joined the military to earn money for college.

“At that age you think you’re invincible,” Julie Yamamoto, principal at Caldwell High when Allcott and French attended, told the Idaho Statesman newspaper.

For young people, she said, dealing with death “is a rite of passage, and a sad rite of passage.”

Including Allcott, at least 16 Idaho residents have died in Iraq since the United States invaded in March 2003.

Through Saturday, at least 2,417 members of the U.S. military have died in the conflict since the invasion began.

Allcott’s family and friends, representatives from the Idaho National Guard, firefighters, and state and local officials attended Friday’s ceremony, filling a Mormon church sanctuary and overflow seating in a nearby gymnasium.

Acting Gov. Jim Risch, who is due to replace Gov. Dirk Kempthorne when he is confirmed as U.S. Interior secretary, said Allcott knew the sacrifices that came with joining the Army.

He enlisted in May 2004, more than a year after the invasion.

“He will be remembered by us as a peacemaker,” Risch said.

Bruce Woodbury, a fellow member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, recalled Allcott as a young man who sought the advice of others to help him make his own decisions.

“I had the opportunity of having many frank talks with Jacob,” Woodbury said at the funeral. “As we sat in counsel together, he would listen to what I had to say, mull it over and form his own counsel. He knew what he wanted.”

Allcott, born in Idaho Falls, was buried Saturday in Ione, in eastern Idaho.