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The corporal, a Durango-area resident for five years before he enlisted, believed in the Iraq mission. He died there with two other U.S. soldiers Saturday.
August 8, 2007
By Nick Martin
Denver Post Staff Writer
They were a 21st-century Odd Couple, living in Durango.
She was a middle-aged Democrat who loved to cook, and he was a 20-something Republican who loved to eat.
Publication info
This story originally ran August 8, 2007 in the Denver Post.
They were housemates for two years and became good friends, but when the war in Iraq began, their opinions on it couldn't have been further apart.
"He was just very adamant about supporting the president and defending our country," said Sally Silva, who let her co-worker's son, Jason LaFleur, live with her after his father moved to California.
On Tuesday, Silva remembered a conversation she had with LaFleur after President Bush ordered troops into Iraq.
"I said, 'Well, if you believe he's so right, you're of age, you can sign up."'
LaFleur was killed Saturday when the Army Humvee he was riding in was hit by a roadside bomb in Hawr Rajab, Iraq. He was 28.
The U.S. military announced his death late Monday along with two other soldiers - Sgt. Dustin S. Wakeman, 25, of Fort Worth, Texas, and Pfc. Jaron D. Holliday, 21, of Tulsa, Okla. - who died in the same attack.
All three were serving with the 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, based out of Fort Richardson, Alaska.
LaFleur's friends and family remembered him Tuesday as a man who was extremely smart - a "math head," as his mother called him. He was a whiz at taking tests and scored high on exams when he joined the Army in May 2005.
He grew up in the small town of Lockhart, Texas, just outside of Austin, and played competitive soccer there until he graduated from Lockhart High School in 1997, said his mother, Kei Torres.
Although he spent about five years living in and around Durango, his mother emphasized Tuesday that her son was "first a Texan."
After graduation, he studied math on an academic scholarship for two years at the University of Mississippi and spent another year at Texas State University, she said.
In 2000, LaFleur moved to Durango, where his father, Chuck LaFleur, was living. There, LaFleur worked various jobs - for the city, Home Depot and others.
It was in Durango that he got the idea to join the Army.
"He wanted to do something different and wanted to do something important," Torres said.
LaFleur rose quickly through the military ranks, making corporal in less than two years.
The last time Torres saw her son was in June, the week of Father's Day. He surprised his mother at her Seattle-area home.
That week, Torres saw her son in a way that she never had before he joined the Army.
"When I saw him in that uniform, it was like another person there," Torres said.
Her son used to be very guarded, but the Army opened him up, she said.
"When I could look at him and see how proud he was, that was a big deal."
Army officials told his family that LaFleur will be posthumously awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, Torres said.
He will be buried in Texas.