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| Yolanda Wagner is comforted as she puts her arms around the flag draped coffin of her son U.S. Army Sgt. Taurean Tranvanti Harris during a return ceremony at the Pike County Airport in Fernwood Friday.(Aaron Rhoads/The Enterprise-Journal) |
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| (MSMCC101) McComb, MS Sgt. Taurean Harris of Liberty, Mississippi is seen in this undated family photo. Harris, with the U.S. Army based out of Fort Gordon, Georgia, was killed on August 2, 2007 in Afghanistan. (Ap Photo, The Enterprise-Journal, Aaron Rhoads
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| McComb, Ms Members of the Mississippi National Guard Honor Guard Team carry Sgt. Taurean Harris from a chartered jet to a hearse that awaits him during a return ceremony at the Pike County Airport in Fernwood, Mississippi Thursday August 9, 2007. Sgt. Harris was killed by a roadside bomb on Aug. 2 in Afghanistan. |
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Sgt. Harris returns home
By Todd Harrell | Enterprise-Journal
Posted: 08/09/07 - 06:32:04 pm CDT
A Liberty Soldier killed in Afghanistan last week returned home Thursday to family and friends at the McComb/Pike County airport.
Army Sgt. Taurean T. Harris, 22, died Aug. 2 from injuries sustained in a roadside bomb. He was assigned to the 202nd Military Intelligence Battalion, 513th Military Intelligence Brigade based out of Fort Gordon, Ga.
Visitation is from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday at Craft Funeral Home of McComb and continues from 4 to 9 p.m. at West Jerusalem Baptist Church in Liberty. Services will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Homochitto Baptist Association in Gloster with the Rev. Londia Weatherspoon officiating. Burial will be in West Jerusalem Baptist Church cemetery.
Some 70 people including Harris’ family and friends as well as the Mississippi National Guard, local law enforcement and other dignitaries gathered at the airport as a flag-draped casket containing Harris’ body was unloaded from a chartered jet.
After the jet arrived shortly after 1 p.m., military officials conducted a brief formal ceremony and Harris’ casket was relayed from the plane to a Craft Funeral Home hearse.
About 10 members of the honor guard from the Mississippi National Guard escorted the coffin as it was lowered from the airplane.
Groups of Harris’ family and friends stood silently on the tarmac and others were motionless behind the runway fence.
After Harris’ casket was on the ground Harris’ mother Yolanda Wagner, grandmother Mamie Tobias uncle Frederick Wagner and others were led to the casket. For a few moments Wagner embraced to casket and cried. An emotional Wagner had to be braced by relatives as she and the family left the runway and loaded into vehicles for the procession to Craft Funeral Home.
Wagner said after the ceremony the whole ordeal has been extremely hard.
“I’m trying to be what my son want to me to be and that’s true soldier’s mom,” she said.
In Harris’ native Amite County, residents are encouraged to pick up miniature flags and line the road Friday to honor the fallen soldier as his body is brought through town en route to West Jerusalem Baptist Church, said Amite County Chancery Clerk Ronny Taylor.
Craft Funeral Home will bring the body from McComb through Liberty around 2:45 p.m. Friday. Amite County sheriff’s deputies will provide an escort.
More than 1,000 miniature flags will be available at the courthouse. Taylor urged people to get them before 2:30 in order to take their places on Highway 24 and 48 near the courthouse.
Harris graduated from Amite County High School, where he was an honor roll student and a member of the JROTC.
He enlisted in the Army after high school and served as an electrical engineer.
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