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About eight months later, Army Spc. Erik W. Hayes would have been home.

Instead, Hayes, who grew up in Thurmont and Harney, was killed on Nov. 29, 2004, when an improvised explosive device exploded near his vehicle in Miqdadiyah, Iraq. He was 24.

On Saturday, friends, family and others gathered to honor him at the dedication of a sign on a bridge running over the Monocacy River on Md. 140, outside Emmitsburg.

After the ceremony, Daniel Hopson of Oklahoma, who served with Hayes in the Army in Iraq, remembered his friend as quiet and humble.

Erik was not a social butterfly, Hopson said.

But he was reliable and mature for his age, the kind of soldier who would volunteer to do something because it had to be done, he said.

Speaking at the ceremony, Hopson remembered sitting on the roof of an Iraqi police station with Hayes on the day he died.

Hopson asked where he would go on vacation if he could go anywhere in the world.

Hayes said he would go home and work several jobs to help take care of his brother, Bradley, who had been seriously injured in a car crash several years earlier.

The members of the platoon loved Hayes, Hopson said.

The love that all of us had for him, I cant even express it, he said.

Hayes graduated in 1998 from Living Word Academy in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania.

When he died, The News-Post reported that he had enlisted in the Army five days before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Timothy Grossman, who also served with Hayes, remembered his friends generosity, his easy way of speaking, and his wisdom that seemed far beyond his 24 years.

Grossman said he was grateful to see the crowd at the event.

We must do this for him, Grossman said.

About 100 people came to the State Highway Administration property near the bridge, which carries Md. 140 over the river between Emmitsburg and Taneytown in Carroll County.

After the ceremony, Hayes mother, Debora Reckley, said it meant a lot that so many people came out to honor her son, many years after he died.

Frederick County Executive Jan Gardner spoke at the ceremony, along with County Council President Bud Otis, Delegate William Folden, and several county commissioners from Carroll County. Councilman Kirby Delauter was the master of ceremonies.

Folden is an Army veteran and sponsored a bill, which was signed in 2015, that allows families to ask the states Department of Transportation to name structures after their loved ones.

It was the first bill he filed after arriving in Annapolis, Folden said, and was intended to help remember both people who have served and the families left behind.

This bill is about honoring them. Honor them every day, he told the crowd.

As the ceremony was wrapping up, officials unveiled the brown sign with white lettering that notes Hayes name, his service in Iraq, and the date of his death.

His father, Douglas Hayes, said Erik had spent almost four years in the Army, and had about eight months left on his tour when he was killed.

Hayes said the sign was a good way to honor his son.

That will be Eriks bridge now, he said.

Follow Ryan Marshall on Twitter: @RMarshallFNP.

Excerpt from:
Thirteen years after Frederick County soldier's death in Iraq, a bridge bears his name - Frederick News Post (subscription)