Pvt. Brandon Davis , 1st Engineers, 1st Brigade, 1st Division, March 31, 2004

Pvt. Brandon Lee Davis would do anything for anybody, his father, Jeffrey Davis , said. He proved it, too, giving up his leave time in February of 2004 so that an Army buddy could return to the United States to get married.

Davis , 20, of Cresaptown, Md., stayed behind and died a few weeks later with four other members of his unit when an explosion wrecked their military vehicle. "He wasn't a fighter," his grandmother, Stella Davis , said. She said Davis had joined the Army in February of 2003 because he had a hard time finding work at home. Father and grandmother had traveled to Fort Riley before his departure overseas to see him, and found a changed man.

"He looked like a different person," said Stella Davis . "So proud and straight."

Davis and his mother talked about the danger in Iraq over the phone.

"I said, 'Watch your back, Brandon ,'" recalled Jackie Weatherholt of the last conversation she had with her son. He was stationed at Fort Riley.

The youngest of three children, Davis enjoyed carpentry and fishing."He was just your average, everyday teenager, basically," Weatherholt said. "He was just one of those all-American kids, the guys who help old women across the street."