BEAUMONT-By: Leslie Rangel
Sgt. Anthony Maddox arrived at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Beaumont shortly before?eight Saturday morning for the funeral service.
After the service, he was taken to his final resting place at the Houston National Cementary.
Family and friends from across the nation, even a Major General, came to say farewell to the young hero.
Patriot Guard bikes lined the church early Saturday morning.
A herse pulls up.
"We're here to bury one of our own today. It doesn't ever get any easier, you don't get hardened to this at all," Major General Steve Townsend tells KFDM News.?
The Major General came to represent the Secretary of the Army and the whole 10th Moutnain Division, about 22,000 soliders.
He says it doesn't get easier to say goodbye to Sgt. Anthony Maddox.
A hero at the age of 22.
"He was in logistics and specifically he was a petroleum specialist.?That career field does not promote fast. For him to be promotable to sergeant, he was doing something very right," Major General Townsend says.?
His general says a fueling accident in Afghanistan killed him.
"It hit me that he's really gone and there was really an accident," Johnnie Stevenson a retired infantry man says. He first met a young Maddox when he got back from Afghanistan.
"Now, to lose another guy, it makes me want to be back in there and you know to put my uniform back on," Stevenson says.?
"As a commander, you feel the loss of one of your soldiers. These soldiers become brothers and sisters to you, " Major General Townsend said.?
The bond of a family linked by love.
Love that was seen on his grandmother's face right before the service.
"When you look in the eyes of a parent, I can't say that I can feel what they're feeling, ?but I can feel their pain, I can see it, I can feel it," Major General Townsend says.?
They're feelings shared by friends, family and those in this Southeast Texas Community.
"I never met him, but I'm a mother and for a young man, so young to give his life for his country, is not something that all of us could say we're willing to do," Port Arthur Mayor, Bobbie Prince says, trying to hold back tears.?
Young men carry out one of their own, their brother who will never be forgotten.
"I know him better than I realized after I started looking at what he's done, who his familiy was, what his fellow soldiers said about him. He was an American Soldier, I knew him, " Major General Townsend says.
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