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Chavis Turret
SATHER AIR BASE, Iraq - Col. Gregory Marston, 447th Air Expeditionary Group, commander, talks to security forces and logistics readiness Airmen after the first vehicle equipped with a Chavis Turret was handed over the security forces for testing. (Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Scott McNabb) Download Full Image
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Improvise - Adapt - Overcome!!!!
The more things change....
L
Leebernard Emmanuel Chavis
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/lechavis.htm
Airman First Class, United States Air Force
NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense
No. 1036-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 16, 2006
The Department of Defense announced today the death of an Airman who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Airman 1st Class Leebenard E. Chavis, 21, of Hampton, Virginia, died October 14, 2006, while performing duties as a turret gunner with the Iraqi police in the vicinity of Baghdad, Iraq. Chavis was assigned to the 824th Security Forces Squadron, Moody Air Force Base, Georgia.
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October 17, 2006:
Michael Chavis was on a cell phone for a half-hour on Friday, talking about cars with his older brother in Iraq.
The next day, Airman First Class Leebernard Emmanuel Chavis, 21, of Hampton, Virginia, was killed by a sniper's bullet while patrolling with Iraqi police near Baghdad.
"We were told that he was near to where some Iraqis were bombed out," Leebernard's father, also named Michael, said Monday. "They said that he exposed himself when he left his truck to try to get them out of danger."
Family members said they were informed of his death Sunday.
Leebernard, who had joined the Air Force a year after graduating from Phoebus High School in 2003, manned a .50 caliber machine gun in a turret atop a truck. He was charged with extra vigilance as a lookout because his perch was higher.
"His commanding officer told me today that they called him the 'Guardian Angel' because of that," Leebernard's father said.
Leebernard - called Lee by his friends and "Nard" by his family - had talked of the future with Michael, his younger brother by 14 months, on Friday.
"He said he wanted to get a car when he got back," said young Michael Chavis, a 20-year-old student at Thomas Nelson Community College. "We talked about our girlfriends. I always told him that he should have gone to school. He was a smart guy."
Leebernard began his second tour in Iraq in June, 13 months after beginning his first tour. He was due home near the end of the year. "He just didn't know what he wanted," his father said of the interim between high school and the military. "He spent a year trying to figure out what he wanted to do and decided he wanted to join the police, maybe join the FBI or CIA."
With that in mind, Leebernard joined the Air Force to train in police work. He was a member of the 824th Security Forces Squadron, stationed at Moody Air Force Base, near Valdosta, Ga.
"It was just something he wanted to do," his father said. "He could have gone to college and then go on to the police force, but he wanted to explore life a bit first."
While at Phoebus High School, Leebernard played the cymbals with the marching band and was a member of the Marine Corps ROTC.
"He was in a group that called themselves the 'Stick 'n Move,' a very close-knit group of young men and ladies," said Kevin Davis, assistant principal at Phoebus, of roughly 14 percussionists. "They were sort of a band within the band, their own fraternity. They would eat lunch together, practice together."
Davis remembered the group and Leebernard in particular.
"He had a wonderful smile," Davis said. "He would turn around and throw that smile at you, and you knew it was Lee."