Louisiana loses a golfer

According the News & Observer in North Carolina, three days after Mother’s Day on May 17, Petty Officer Third Class Lee Hamilton Deal, 23, was killed in Iraq’s Al Anbar province.

Deal was from West Monroe, La., and was a Navy sailor assigned to North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune.

From the News & Observer:

“During their early Mother’s Day conversation, Melanie Deal (Lee’s mother) wanted to know if her son had received the DVDs of the Master’s golf tournament she had recorded for him.

‘He was a big golf fan,’ Melanie Deal said. “He tried to play every chance he got whenever he was in North Carolina.’ “

According to the story, Lee Deal graduated from West Monroe High School in 2001 and was a placekicker on the school’s extremely successful football team, winning state and national titles from 1998 to 2000. Deal is the third West Monroe football player to lose his life in Iraq.

Our best wishes to the entire Deal family, and other families dealing with the same type of grief.

–WKW