Army Pfc. David D. Finch
One day during football practice, coach Carey Craig saw David "Dustin" Finch shaking his hand. He kept playing _ even though he'd dislocated a finger.
It wasn't the first time Finch played through an injury, said Craig, the coach at Humboldt High School during Finch's playing days.
"If I had asked him to run through a brick wall, he would have done it," Craig said.
That fearlessness is what made him such a good soldier, Craig told The Jackson (Tenn.) Sun.
Finch, 24, of Bath Springs, Tenn., was killed Dec. 8 in Wasit province, Iraq, when insurgents attacked his unit. He was assigned to Fort Hood.
His wife, Heather, told the newspaper she still remembers everything about the night she met him.
"I was just a 16-year-old kid, but the first moment I started talking with him, I knew. I fell in love with him _ I will forever be in love with him," she said.
The 21-year-old recalled her husband as a romantic gentleman, pulling out her chair and opening doors for her.
Dustin Finch graduated from Humboldt High in 2005 and was the football team's captain and MVP during the 2004 season. He also played football at Bethel University, where he studied civil engineering, but left before graduating to join the Army in 2009.
