Kermit Evans Air Force captain remembered as "great husband and father"

Air Force Capt. Kermit O. Evans was growing weary of the war in Iraq and was getting anxious to see his wife and young son in Las Vegas when the helicopter he was riding in crash-landed in a lake Sunday, killing him and three other troops, his family said.

"He always wanted to be fair, and if it wasn't right, he was going to find a way to make it right. He always spoke his mind, and he did it respectfully," his wife, Perneatha Cunningham Evans, said Tuesday, reflecting on the life of her 31-year-old husband.

A memorial service for him is scheduled at noon today at the Nellis Air Force Base chapel. The family is planning a burial service at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Evans was an explosives ordnance officer formerly stationed at Nellis Air Force Base and a native of Hollandale, Miss. He worked for Nellis' environmental program before he left in 2004 to enter explosives ordnance school at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Perneatha Evans said.

"He was a great husband and father," she said. "I'll remember him forever."

Perneatha Evans and their son, 13-month-old Kermit Jr., have been living in Las Vegas while he was overseas. She works at Quest Diagnostics, and her sister lives in the Las Vegas Valley.

Evans and his wife met at Mississippi State University where he studied chemical engineering and played on the football team as a walk-on. Their paths crossed again when he was stationed at Nellis from November 2001 to December 2004. They were married at Victory Baptist Church on Oct. 10, 2004.

She last spoke to him Saturday. "His heart was heavy because they had had a loss there," she said in a telephone interview. "He was traveling around the theater of Iraq to check on his troops to see if they needed anything. He was supposed to come home in the end of February."

A Nellis base spokesman, Capt. Justin McVay, said Evans "was just catching a ride" when, according to other U.S. military officials, the twin-rotor Marine CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter went down in Lake Qadisiyah behind the hydroelectric dam at Haditha on the Euphrates River in the volatile western Anbar province. Sixteen troops were on board.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, told The Associated Press that the helicopter began to lose power after lifting off from the dam. He said all but the pilot and co-pilot evacuated from the back of the helicopter. It glided across the water and used a boat ramp to get on shore. He said no fighting was going on in the area at the time. The incident is under investigation.

A Marine was pulled from the water, but attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful. Evans' body and that of 22-year-old Army Spc. Dustin Adkins, of Finger, Tenn., from the 5th Special Forces Group, were recovered in a subsequent search along with the body of the other Marine. The Department of Defense identified the Marines on Wednesday as Maj. Joseph McCloud, 39, of Grosse Pointe Park, Mich., and Cpl. Joshua Sticklen, 24, of Virginia Beach, Va.

The other 12 troops survived.

Evans, on his second tour in Iraq, was assigned to the 27th Civil Engineer Squadron at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M. He was deployed with the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, Balad Air Base, Iraq.

McVay said that at the time of the emergency landing, Evans was an operations officer for a detachment that responds to improvised explosive device attacks, conducting forensic analysis to figure out how to counter them.

Evans' only sibling, Kervin Evans of Peoria, Ill., said that his younger brother had been working 18-hour shifts since his arrival in Iraq in July. They communicated by e-mail and occasionally by telephone. He spoke to him last week.

"He sounded tired, like maybe he was worn out, maybe battle-weary. He was planning on having some serious down time when he came home," Kervin Evans said.

He said his brother joined the Air Force because "he thought there was something missing in his life, and the military was where he thought he could get fulfillment."

"He was more than a brother. He was a friend," Kervin Evans said, describing the two of them growing up in Mississippi with their mother and father as a "very tight family."

"He was fun-loving, mischievous," he said. "I'm the reserved kind of guy. But if it was exciting, he was off like a shot to do it. He believed in honor and morals and had a very strong work ethic."

Perneatha Evans said her husband "loved Las Vegas" where he had friends and co-workers.

Evans was the 45th member of the military with Nevada ties to die in the nation's war on terrorism overseas since Sept. 11, 2001.