Army Sgt. Dustin J. Perrott was
the kind of leader who infused others with motivation and the sort
of person with whom it was impossible not to share a smile, his
commander said. To friends and family, he was brave, charismatic
and selfless. His wife and friends called him the Gentle Giant.
Perrott, 23, of Fredericksburg,
was an infantryman with the 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry
Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division. He died
Thursday of wounds suffered when a bomb detonated in Miri, Afghanistan,
the Army said in a statement yesterday.
"Everyone always seemed drawn
to his kindness," his wife, Anna Marie, 20, said in a statement.
The couple were married in August 2004. "Dusty was a huge guy. .
. . That guy that would give you the shirt off his back and the
last dollar to his name."
Since deploying to Afghanistan
in February, Perrott was rarely able to contact his parents. The
last time he phoned, his stepfather, John Calamos, scrawled the
cellphone number and time on a piece of paper that he stuck on the
fridge: 6:07 a.m., June 6. Perrott had borrowed a friend's phone,
and that number had appeared on the home phone's caller ID, Calamos
said.
"He told us we probably wouldn't
hear from him in a while because he was going on a mission, and
in Afghanistan, it's rural, not like Baghdad," Calamos said.
Perrott, who joined the Army in
2004, never feared action, his family said. He volunteered to go
to serving there from December 2004 to March 2005.
"I want to serve my country. I'm
proud to serve my country," he often said, according to his wife's
statement. At age 16, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,
Perrott felt a calling to enlist but had to wait until he graduated
from high school. He also sought to follow in the footsteps of his
father, a sergeant, who died when Perrott was 4, his family said.
After completing training at Fort
Benning, Ga., in 2004, he rose to the rank of sergeant.
"Sgt. Perrott was a tremendous
paratrooper who had been a leader in this organization for a long
time," Lt. Col. Timothy McAteer, commander of the 2nd Battalion,
508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, said in a statement. ". . . You
just couldn't help but smile when you talked to him."
As early as third grade, Perrott
was the class clown, his mother recalled. In high school and beyond,
he channeled that energy into playing drums with his band.
"Dusty had an ear for music like
nothing I've ever seen," wrote his wife. He couldn't read sheet
music, but he could hear something once, like an Elton John tune,
and play it right back without error, she said.
Among the decorations he received
are the Bronze Star Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal and the
Army Achievement Medal.
Perrott will be buried beside
his father, in Fredericksburg.