PALM BAY, Fla. – Michael Russell Creighton-Weldon joined the Army last year, soon after his mother retired after two decades in the service.
"He wanted to follow in his mother's footsteps," his mother, retired Sgt. Maj. Jean Weldon, said Monday from her home in Palm Bay, about 70 miles southeast of Orlando. "He chose infantry because he's a tough guy."
Creighton-Weldon, 20, was one of four members of the Army's 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, who died Saturday when a taxi drove up to an Army checkpoint north of the Iraqi city of Najaf and exploded after the driver waved for help. It was the first suicide attack since the U.S.-led invasion began.
Others killed were Cpl. Michael E. Curtin, 33, of Howell, N.J.; Pfc. Diego Fernando Rincon, 19, of Conyers, Ga.; and Sgt. Eugene Williams, 24, of Highland, N.Y.
Creighton-Weldon was a muscular 5-foot, 10-inches who looked like the actor Nicolas Cage, his mother said. He lifted weights, loved video games and took special care of his truck.
"He would polish it all the time," the mother said.
Creighton-Weldon had been engaged before he was deployed in late January. Whenever he called his fiance, Kerri, from Iraq, she would drive to his house carrying the cell phone so he could talk to his family. He had a 15-year-old brother and a 23-year-old sister.
"My son was the strength of the household," Jean Weldon said. "After I got divorced, Michael was the man of the house."
In his hometown in New Jersey, Curtin was remembered Monday as an All-American boy – square-jawed, with blue eyes, a brush cut and a perpetual smile. A substitute wide receiver on his high school football team, he nevertheless never missed a practice in four years.
"The kind of guy he was?" said Howell High School Principal Barbara McMorrow. "I'm sorry," she said, fighting back tears. "It's difficult to say 'was.' He was a principal's dream. I've been getting calls all day from former staffers and administrators wanting to know, 'Is it our Michael?'"
His sister, Katie, 20, stood on the front steps of the family's home, clutching a handful of recent snapshots of her brother. He was the oldest of five children.
"It's just really sad," his sister said. "He was perfect, you know? Everything he did was what his family would have wanted him to do."
Rincon, 19, was born in Colombia and moved to the United States in 1989. He signed up for military service after graduating in 2001 from high school in Conyers, Ga. He told friends and family he enlisted because he was out to avenge the Sept. 11 attacks and wanted to protect the country.
"My son Diego was a very brave man, and we are all very proud of him," Rincon's father, George, told reporters outside his home Monday.
Friends remembered Rincon as high-spirited and active in cheerleading, gymnastics and drama. "How do you put it in words?" said Joe Bryan, a teacher at Salem High. "It was gut-wrenching; it was very bad news."
In his last letter to his mother, received 10 days ago, Rincon wrote: "I believe God has a path for me. Whether I make it or not, it's all part of the plan. It can't be changed, only completed."
Williams had a 3-year-old daughter and was going become a father again in June, his wife said Monday on NBC's "Today" show.
Fighting back tears, Brandy Williams said she would tell her children that their father gave his life for his country, "and that even though he's not here, he loves them with all his heart and that he's always going to be our hero."
