A dying soldier's final words: 'I'm sorry, Mom'

 by Leigh Munsil
 published on Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Jeffrey Lowman / THE STATE PRESS

PICTURES OF THE PAST: Rhonda Holmes, mother of Specialist James J. Holmes, an ASU student who was killed in Iraq, shares photographs of her son’s training, his time in Iraq and his funeral Tuesday evening in her Peoria home.

Jeffrey Lowman / THE STATE PRESS

“GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN”: Rhonda and George Holmes keep a candle lit on an altar for their son, former ASU student Specialist James J. Holmes, who was killed in Iraq inside their Peoria home.

If Specialist James J. Holmes had waited just three months, he would probably be alive today.

Instead, the former United States Marine reserve gave up a higher salary, a safer position and ultimately his life to deploy to Iraq early with the 141st Engineer Combat Battalion of the North Dakota National Guard because they needed extra soldiers.

The good-humored, unmarried 28-year-old Peoria man told his mother that fighting in the Iraq conflict was his "calling in life," and that he would rather die than let someone else with a wife or children be killed.

"If he could prevent someone from being without a mother or father it would be worth it," said his mother, Rhonda Holmes. "He was a very loyal American."

The Centennial High School and Arizona State University graduate was working on his commission for the Marines in North Dakota when he heard the guard needed more soldiers.

On May 3, 2004, James was driving an armored Humvee carrying three others when a bomb went off by the driver's side, sending shrapnel into his torso, according to Eric Jensen, a spokesman for the North Dakota National Guard.

He continued to drive the vehicle and all of its passengers a quarter-mile further to safety.

When the group reached a safe place, the former Southwest Ambulance employee laid himself down on the ground and helped talk the medic through his care, even the removal of his damaged liver.

He was transported to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where the surgeons said the injuries to his intestines, pelvis, lungs and liver should have killed him on impact.

"The surgeons said they had never seen a body with so much damage," Rhonda said.

When Rhonda, her husband, George, and their other son got to the hospital in Germany a few days later, James only had time to say three words before he lost consciousness.

Before he left, James and his mother had argued because she did not want him to deploy early, but to wait for his commission.

"He knew when we got there, all he could do was say sorry to me," Rhonda said, her voice breaking. "He moved his lips enough for us to know he said, 'I'm sorry, Mom.' "

James died on Mother's Day — May 8, 2004 — after drawing a blood clot due to complications with the multiple surgeries he underwent.

The loss of their son and brother was a huge blow to the Holmes family, one they deal with every day, nearly four years later.

"It totally tore our family apart," Rhonda said. "It totally ruined our lives. He never realized what it would do to his family."

James was awarded the Bronze Star for valor, as well as the Purple Heart.

"If he had stuck with his unit and not volunteered," Rhonda said, he would be alive today.

"Not one person in [his original] unit was hit," she said. "Everyone came back alive."

Several members of the unit James joined have named children after him, and many have gotten tattoos of him with the words, "Gone, but not forgotten."

A self-proclaimed liberal and grieving mother — James even jokingly used to call her a "communist" — Rhonda promised her son she would stand behind his belief in what he fought for.

Still, Rhonda has spoken with hundreds of soldiers and every day shares James' story to preserve his memory.

"God knows why he loved this country so much," she said. "But of all the soldiers I've talked to, not one of them has said we shouldn't be [in Iraq], so obviously they're seeing something we're not."

Reach the reporter at: leigh.munsil@asu.edu.