Shock reverberated through the halls of Ruskin's East Bay High School as friends and teachers remember the polite, lanky soldier.
By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published January 21, 2004
Orr
RUSKIN - Among the hundreds of teens who pass through East Bay High School in a given year, the academic all-stars and persistent troublemakers are usually the ones who stick in teachers' minds.
Cody Orr was neither. But automotive technology teacher Wayne Nicholson remembers him well.
The blue jeans and cowboy boots on his lanky 6-foot frame. The John Deere baseball cap that always covered his blond hair. The Chevrolet S-10 pickup he constantly tinkered with in East Bay's auto shop. The meticulous manners that made "Yes, sir. No, sir" his characteristic refrain.
All those memories flooded back to Nicholson Tuesday, as he struggled to absorb the news that Orr, 21, was one of three U.S. soldiers who died Saturday when their Bradley Fighting Vehicle struck a bomb and overturned in the cane fields north of Baghdad.
Army Pfc. Orr and Sgt. Edmond Lee Randle of the Carol City neighborhood northwest of Miami were killed, along with Spc. Larry E. Polley Jr. of Center, Texas. All three were attached to the 2nd Battalion, 20th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Hood, Texas.
Two Iraqi civil defense fighters were also killed and two American soldiers wounded. The group was searching for land mines and roadside bombs near Taji, about 20 miles north of Baghdad.
The blast flipped the 30-ton vehicle and set it afire, witnesses said. Three men fleeing in a white truck were detained, and soldiers found bomb-making material in the vehicle, officials said.
Orr is the fifth graduate of Hillsborough County's public school system to die in the conflict. His death also comes less than two weeks after Army Chief Warrant Officer Aaron Weaver, a Citrus High graduate, was killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq. As of Monday, 501 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of operations in Iraq, according to the military.
School officials told students and teachers about Orr's death over the public announcement system at East Bay High Tuesday morning, then observed a moment of silence for the 2001 graduate who was part of East Bay's Junior ROTC.
Orr's classmates have graduated, so most students were concerned but not devastated by the news, Nicholson said.
The loss was harder for Orr's teachers, who until Tuesday didn't even know he had enlisted in the Army. When he graduated, teachers thought for sure Orr would get a job working on cars.
"Cody was a country boy," said Nicholson, who taught Orr during his sophomore and junior years. "He had that basic love of anything mechanic, and cars were his passion. But he was the kind of kid who would feel like he had an obligation to his country to fight. That was Cody."
According to Army officials at Fort Hood, Orr enlisted in May 2002 and had been stationed at Fort Hood since February 2003.
Before he left for boot camp, Orr lived 9 miles away from East Bay in Ruskin. Tuesday morning, his family's white manufactured home was silent. Neighbors said they believed Orr's parents, Deborah and Robert Orr, left for Fort Hood after learning of their son's death over the weekend.
In the front yard off 21st Avenue SE, a yellow ribbon hanging from a tree rippled in the breeze. A red, white and blue ribbon hung from the front door, near the wreath that proclaimed Love Grows Here.
The rural area is a mix of farm land, businesses and small homes, several of them decorated with yellow ribbons and American flags.
Diana Vasquez, who lives next door to the Orrs with her husband Freddie, said Deborah Orr called Freddie Sunday and told him about Cody. She asked Vasquez to keep an eye on the house.
"I was like, "Oh my God! Cody? No way,' " said Mrs. Vasquez, who watched Cody grow up in the nine years he lived next door. "It seems like he was just a little boy, running around and playing ball."
Freddie Vasquez said Cody often talked of joining the service.
"That was his dream," Vasquez said. "That's what he really, really wanted - no questions asked."
He recalled him as a generous teen who did yard work for the Vasquezes and then refused to take money for the effort.
Mrs. Vasquez said Orr had an older sister who lived in Texas. His mother has worked for years as a guard at Kings Point in Sun City Center, she said.
Relatives declined to talk, but Nicholson and East Bay High Algebra teacher Terry Varvil spoke about Orr Tuesday. "I didn't expect to hear his name on the announcement," Varvil said. "What a loss. He was just a great kid."
Orr wasn't a natural mathematician, but he was one of Varvil's hardest working students.
"He didn't always get everything," said Varvil, who had Orr during his freshman year. "But he never backed down from a challenge."
- Staff researchers John Martin and Cathy Wos and staff writer Jay Cridlin contributed to this report. Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
