Green Beret Casualty Remembered
As many as 2,000 people are expected at the funeral in Bakersfield, California, Thursday for Army Green Beret Cody Prosser.
He and two other special forces soldiers were killed in Afghanistan last week when their position was accidentally bombed.
After the funeral, Prosser's body will be flown to Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington for burial.
Staff Sgt. Brian Cody Prosser, 28, of Frazier Park, Calif.;Master Sgt. Jefferson "Donnie" Davis, 39, of Watauga, Tenn.; and Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Petithory, 32, of Cheshire, Mass., were remembered in a memorial Monday at their base, Fort Campbell in Kentucky.
Each soldier was hailed as a hero for his part in helping to free an oppressed country.
"Children are able to laugh, play and sing because of what they did," said Lt. Col. Frank Hudson, deputy commander of the Army's 5th Special Forces Group.
"They changed lives for the better and freed them from oppression," Hudson said of the soldiers' work in Afghanistan. "What more of a legacy could anyone hope to have?"
Prosser's father Brian — a retired firefighter — will deliver the eulogy. He says his son was the "kind of guy people don't forget." He says the funeral is about more than his son. He says, "This is about our country."
The dead soldiers were members of the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Campbell, 50 miles north of Nashville, Tenn. Twenty other American servicemen were wounded when a U.S. bomb missed its target Wednesday. Five Afghan fighters also were killed in the explosion.
Prosser was described as a soldier dedicated to perfection — one who never believed he would not become a member of the elite special forces and so intent on having the right tool for home improvement projects that the workers at Home Depot knew him.
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