Soldier's Brother Wants to Keep Fighting

Navy Petty Officer Second Class Eustace (Tony) Bibby Jr., the older brother of the soldier believed to be the first from an HBCU to be killed in the Iraq conflict, says he respects his parents' wishes to keep him out of harm's way.

But he maintains that "my brother believed in what he was doing. He was proud to defend the country and his heart was in it. He died believing he was doing the right thing. I believe I can have the same courage and conviction that he had, and I want to do this one for him."

Spec. Mark Anthony Bibby, 25, who studied at North Carolina A&T, was killed July 21.

The Bibbys' mother, Jean Bibby, said that Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., and State Rep. Carolyn Justice, R-Pender, were "trying to intervene to keep Tony here."

Tony Bibby, a 10-year Navy veteran now stationed in California, said he expects to be deployed to a so-far-undisclosed destination on Aug. 22.

"We've just been kind of holding at this point for Tony to come home and us to have a conversation with him before we continue the process," said Preston Wells, a family spokesman.

"He has to request for that [deferment] to happen, and then the Red Cross intervenes as a mercy request. They make the request as well. What Congressman McIntyre's office would do is to lend its support to the Red Cross in the mercy request that they make for Tony not to be deployed; for either him to be exempt from deployment or to be deployed someplace else that's not a battlefront."

Chris Wallace is a student at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro.

Posted July 28, 2003.