Chris Moore knew the military was his way out of the tiny rural community of Alpaugh, Calif.
Most of the work if he stayed in the San Joaquin Valley town was in farming or the oil fields. But the military gave him a chance for a better life, perhaps even college after he did his time in the service.
So he went to high school year-round and graduated a year early. And the day after his 1996 graduation from Alpaugh High School, Moore joined the Army.
On May 19, Staff Sgt. Christopher L. Moore, 28, was killed in Baghdad along with five other soldiers when a roadside bomb exploded near their Bradley fighting vehicle while on patrol. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division at Ft. Hood, Texas.
On Tuesday, Moore was buried next to his best friend from the Army at a cemetery in Kennedale, Texas.
In the years between his enlistment and his death, Moore served three tours in the Middle East, was married and had three daughters.
"He always wanted to serve his country," said his mother, Martha. "He died doing the job he loved to do."
Moore's early life was not an easy one. His father, Tommy, who died in 1998, worked in the oil fields and on a farm. The family lived in the small San Joaquin Valley communities of Shafter and Taft before settling in Alpaugh, north of Bakersfield.
Frankie Smith, the town's retired school librarian, said Moore was a young man "with big dreams." She said Alpaugh was a place where most of her students went straight to work out of high school because going on to college was uncommon.
Moore showed his maturity, she said, by setting his sights on the military as a way to do something else with his life.
"He was like a man in a boy's body," Smith said.
More than that, there was a kind of sweetness to him that wasn't typical of teenagers -- "a kid who would give me a hug and never said anything cross."
Moore did his basic training at Ft. Benning, Ga., after which he was sent to Ft. Campbell, Ky., and assigned to the 101st Airborne Division -- nicknamed the "Screaming Eagles" -- where he earned his air assault badge. He was then deployed to Kuwait, his first Middle East assignment, where he guarded Patriot missile sites.
After returning from Kuwait, he was assigned to Ft. Benning, where he attended airborne school. He was stationed with the 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg, N.C.
