The family of a North Texas soldier killed in action say support from their town has comforted them.
U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Shawn McNabb, 24, was killed in Afghanistan on Oct. 26, 2009.
He was a member of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment based at Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia.
The 2003 Terrell High School graduate was an Army medic. He was among a group of soldiers on a search-and-rescue mission when their helicopter went down.
McNabb was a member of the band in high school, but his parents, David and Ann McNabb, said he was a patriot who wanted to do his part to protect his country after the Sept. 11 attack on America.
"That was just the beginning -- if we hadn't had our young men and our military step in and do things like they've done and they’re still doing," David McNabb said.
David McNabb is a justice of the peace and retired Greenville Fire Department lieutenant and paramedic. Ann McNabb is a nurse. They said Shawn planned to continue in a similar path helping people, by become a physician's assistant after the Army.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
Support from the Terrell community has helped them through their loss, Ann McNabb said.
"When this happened, it was like I was in a dream, and it felt like, the response of the people is like I was being carried along, and it was like I was on a cloud just lifted up. And it helped so much," she said.
A memorial park was constructed in Terrell in memory of the five soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2004.
- Sgt. Gerardo Moreno, 23, killed April 2004 in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Iraq.
- Sgt. Sean Brady Berry, 28, died in an accident in October 2005 in Iraq.
- Spc. Jonathan David Arthur Emard, 20, died of combat wounds in June 2008 in Iraq.
- Sgt. Shawn McNabb, 24, killed in October 2009 in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.
- Spc. Joseph Michael Lewis, 26, died in November 2009 in Afghanistan.
