By Erny Zah The Daily Times
Jan 23, 2006, 06:00 am
FRUITLAND --- A 23-year-old Fruitland soldier has been killed in Iraq, with his mourning family fondly remembering him as "a playful ol' Tigger."
Clifton Yazzie, a sergeant in the Army's 101st Airborne, was killed Friday while serving his second tour of duty in Iraq, according to his family.
Details of his death and additional information were not released by the Department of Defense.
Jeanette Yazzie, 46, said she was watching television when uniformed military personnel knocked on her door and gave her news about her son.
"I was wanting to hear that he was hurt or injured, not that he passed away over there," she said Sunday, with about 50 friends and family gathered around her home in Fruitland to show support.
Yazzie's wife received a similar visit while at her grandmother's house in Hogback.
"He was a loving person and a devoted father," said Michelle Yazzie, 21.
The couple have two children: Chaynitta, 3, and Cayden, 18 months.
"It's going to be hard raising them by myself," she said, holding back the tears as best she could.
Clifton Yazzie was a 2001 graduate of Kirtland Central High School. In his senior year, he was part of the state championship basketball team.
He belonged to the Apostolic Faith Tabernacle in Fruitland.
Yazzie had always wanted to be a soldier, his mother said.
As a child, he used to take tree limbs and sticks and turn them into guns to play war, she said.
Enlisting in the military is somewhat of a family tradition.
His father, Clifford "C.Y." Yazzie, 52, tried counting all the relatives that served in the military. He named some brothers that served in the Vietnam War, some nephews and then he stopped counting.
"He was always talking to his uncle," he said. That particular uncle served in Vietnam.
Clifton Yazzie enlisted for his first Iraqi tour in 2001, and then reenlisted in July 2005, after being home in Fruitland for about five months.
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