21-year-old killed by IED a month before he was to return home on leave

ELYRIA — A 21-year-old Elyria man was killed by an improvised explosive device in Iraq on Monday morning, a month before he was scheduled to return home on leave.

Cox

“We don’t know if anybody else was involved or killed with him,” said Gregory Cox, father of U.S. Army Pfc. Jason Cox of Elyria.

“All we know is he’s gone.”

A 2004 graduate of Lorain County Joint Vocational School, Jason Cox had been deployed in Iraq for a year and was scheduled to return to Ohio in mid-July, his father said. After his leave, he was to serve another eight months, but he didn’t know where he would be deployed.

Cox followed his two older brothers into the military.

Matthew Cox has been serving in Kuwait and has been given leave to return to Elyria for his brother’s funeral.

Another brother, Ryan Cox, also spent a year in Iraq but was discharged and now lives in Wisconsin.

“He needed college money, and his two older brothers upped, so he thought it would be a good idea,” Gregory Cox said.

The Cox family won’t be able to hold a funeral right away because Army officials said his body won’t be available for seven to 10 days, Gregory Cox said.

He said he hadn’t spoken with his son for about a month.

Jason Cox loved to work with his hands, his father said. At JVS, he was in the mechanical engineering program, and in his spare time, he loved to soup up cars.

Gregory Cox said his son had just finished rebuilding a Mitsubishi with his buddies before shipping out. That experience paid off in Iraq, where he helped fix Hummers and other heavy vehicles in his off-hours, his father said.

“He was a normal boy. We’ll miss him,” Gregory Cox said. “But we know he was saved. He was a Christian, so I have confidence he’s with Jesus Christ in heaven.”

Contact Jason Hawk at 329-7148 or jhawk@chroniclet.com.

 

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