Funeral to be held Tuesday in Missoula for Soldier killed in Baghdad
By Michael Moore of the Missoulian
The funeral for felled Idaho National Guard soldier James D. Riekena will be held Tuesday in Missoula.
Riekena, 22, died Jan. 14 in Baghdad when a bomb exploded near his Humvee. Riekena grew up in Missoula, but moved to Redmond, Wash., with his family in 1993 and had recently lived in Post Falls, Idaho, where he enlisted in the National Guard. He still has relatives in Missoula, however.
Riekena's funeral is set for noon Tuesday at the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, 100 E. Foss Court. Burial will follow at Sunset Memorial Cemetery, with a reception afterward at the church.
Stories about Riekena's death played in Seattle newspapers and on Seattle television over the past week, and his relatives told a story of a young man who had reservations about the war but thought helping Iraqis overcome their hardships was a noble cause.
He was a lover of literature, and had plans to go to college to become an English teacher, the Seattle Times reported. Riekena often wrote to his grandmother, Sharon Riekena, who lives in Missoula, about life in Iraq, because she had lived there for several years as a teenager.
He'd recently written by e-mail to tell his family that he was keeping fit by running every day, but said he looked forward to seeing them all soon.
Riekena was on his second tour in Iraq at the time of his death. He was a month away from his 23rd birthday.