Soldier, killed in Iraq April 6, was active in church & missions
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (BP)--An Army soldier remembered for his involvement in his church youth group and his outgoing personality was killed in action April 6.
Army Pvt. Kelley S. Prewitt, 24, was killed by enemy fire during Operation Iraqi Freedom. No other details were released. The Alabama native was a member of Ridgecrest Baptist Church in Birmingham.
During his teenage years he was "very active" in the church's youth group, Ridgecrest associate pastor Johnny Kilgore said. Prewitt joined the church around the age of 16.
"He went to all mission trips," Kilgore told Baptist Press. "He was involved in the church life recreationally. Everything we did in the youth ministry, he was always there. He had a lot of close-knit friends."
Kilgore, who will officiate the funeral April 17, said Prewitt was very outgoing.
"He had an inviting smile," he said. "He was a lot of fun."
Prewitt's father, Steve Prewitt, said he hopes the nation will not forget his son's sacrifice.
"I just know that Kelley would really hope -- and I do, too -- that in the future history will tell us that his death and the death of all these other soldiers is not in vain," Steve Prewitt told the Savannah Morning News. "The Iraqi people will understand that our way of life and law and order and freedom is the way to live on this earth."
The younger Prewitt loved water sports and the outdoors, the newspaper added.
On his last day in America, his mother took him and two of his friends to a Red Lobster. Seeing the soldiers' military garb, several customers walked up to them and thanked them for their military service, his mother told The Birmingham Post-Herald.
"The guys were just eating it up," she told the Post-Herald.
Prewitt, who was single, was based in Fort Benning, Ga.
