Local soldier laid to rest
SOTO: 'Josh was competitive at everything'
Last Updated Sunday, Jun 28 2009 07:57 PM
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A military honor guard carries Sgt. Josh Soto's casket to the Hill of Valor at Hillcrest Memorial Park and Mortuary, Saturday, after he was killed in Iraq earlier this month.
A military honor guard carries the casket of Sgt. Josh Soto to the Hill of Valor at Hillcrest Memorial Park and Mortuary during his funeral service. Soto was killed earlier this month in Iraq when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle.
A military honor guard marches behind the hearse carrying Sgt. Josh Soto, during his military funeral, Saturday, at Hillcrest Memorial Park and Mortuary.
Spc. Simon Avalos salutes as the casket passes carrying Sgt. Josh Soto on Saturday at the Hillcrest Memorial Park and Mortuary during Soto's funeral. Avalos is from Bakersfield, but did not know Soto.
Family members of Sgt. Josh Soto were in the funeral procession to Soto's gravesite Saturday at Hillcrest Memorial Park and Mortuary.
Army Sgt. Joshua W. Soto was laid to rest with full military honors Saturday at Hillcrest Memorial Park and Mortuary.
Friends and family recalled a competitive, focused young man who loved sports, his job as an infantry soldier, and his new family.
Soto, 25, died June 16 near Tallil, Iraq when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle.
Before the service began, Thelma Soto stood at the head of her husband's open casket. Their 9-month-old son, Jayden, dressed in a purple and gold Los Angeles Lakers outfit, chortled happily and reached toward visitors as they murmured respects to his mother.
At the conclusion of the service, former neighbor Connie Crimmins would say that Jayden "looks just like Josh did."
Soto's numerous service medals rested on either side of his casket. During the service Soto was posthumously awarded a purple heart, bronze star and campaign medal.
Soto's Fort Bliss commander hung his dog tags around the head of his wife and brother, noting his "selfless" service.
Joshua W. Soto grew up playing basketball and football games on Walmar Street in east Bakersfield.
Shane Soto said the intensity his little brother showed for the Army started in the neighborhood with those pick-up games.
"Josh was competitive at everything growing up, and he was better than me in nine out of ten sports, except for a recent bowling game," said Soto, dressed in his blue Air Force uniform.
When they were tired of running in the street, they moved to video games inside.
So intense was his brother's competitive streak, Josh broke more than one PlayStation controller, Soto remembered.
Crimmins and her kids lived across from the Soto boys on Walmar Street, just west of Oswell. Josh was "always faster down the street when a ball was thrown, and always smiling," she said.
The boys would come calling to her, asking, "would you make us some spaghetti?" Crimmins said. A big group of boys often sat on her front lawn and talked into the night, she remembered fondly.
Crimmins learned of Soto's death when her son Douglas, stationed on the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan near Korea, called from a port stop in Hong Kong.
"They grew up without fathers," Crimmins said about the Soto brothers and her own two boys.
"To come out of that neighborhood, with gang bangers and all that, there's a lot of pride that they grew up to become something," she said.
Military tradition
The Soto boys heard stories about their grandfather's service in WWII and his purple heart. As Boy Scouts, they played capture the flag; Josh was a pretty good shot at the shooting range, Shane said.
When he graduated from Avenal High in 2002, it was an easy decision for Josh to join the Army.
Josh found that the camaderie he found in sports related naturally to the battle field, his brother said.
"I'm sure if they had a hoop in Iraq he was playing there," Shane Soto said.
New family
Gloria Pearson had an agreement with Debbie Soto that if anything ever happened to her, the Pearson family would take in her boys. When Debbie died in a car accident on Highway 58, the boys moved to live with the Pearsons in Hart Flat.
For a couple of east Bakersfield boys, it was a new life, complete with farm animals, snow in the winter and more structure and discipline, said Carl Pearson, who was four years older than the Sotos.
Life was "chaotic and fun" with them around, Pearson said.
He recalled their delight when snow fell the first year, and they sledded down hills late into the night.
Gloria ran a tight ship, and Josh probably benefitted from it the most.
Just before he deployed for Iraq earlier this year, Josh called to "say hello, see how things were going," said Don Pearson, a retired Kern County firefighter.
The Army was probably the best thing that could have happened to Josh, he said.
But with a newborn son, this deployment -- his third -- was a little harder for his brother, Shane Soto said.
"Now that he had a family, he didn't want to miss out on anything," his brother said.
Soto, who was attached to the 1st Armored Division out of Fort Bliss, took part in joint missions with Iraqi soldiers from a base in Tallil, about 180 miles southwest of Baghdad. He was instructing them how to conduct safe military operations, Shane Soto said.
Bombings in Iraq have increased as U.S. troops prepare to withdraw from Iraqi cities and towns by June 30, in an agreement signed with the Iraqi government last November.
From the chapel, a slow procession followed Soto's casket to the Hill of Valor, where veterans of foreign wars are buried at Hillcrest Memorial Park.
A military color guard fired three volleys, an Army commander presented U.S. flags to Thelma, Shane and Josh's grandmother, Julia Soto, and a formation of Army helicopters flew overhead as a bugler's final strains of taps wavered over the hillside.
