NORTH LITTLE ROCK, AR, USA U.S. Army CPT, HHC, 39TH COMBAT SUPPORT BATTALION, CAMP ROBINSON, NORTH LITTLE ROCK, AR TAJI, IRAQ 04/24/2004
Arthur Lejohn Felder was a big man—6’4” and 290 pounds. Yet, he was a gentle giant—never a fighter, always a mediator; never a complainer, always complimentary; a praying man.
Arthur was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and grew up in Flint, Michigan, Fort Smith and Lewisville. He attended Ouachita Baptist University, and completed a physical education degree at East Texas Baptist University. Before his unit was activated, Arthur was youth ministry director at St. Luke’s, working with two boot camp programs and at the Step One Alternative School of Little Rock. He had joined the Army the summer of his junior year in high school. He had been deployed to Bosnia and Honduras before going to Iraq.
His mother said he never let on he was in danger in Iraq. “He would say that he was safe behind his desk,” Cheryl Stuart said. “You would have thought he was calling from Little Rock.”
Capt. “Bo” Felder, 36, of Lewisville, Ark., was killed early April 24, 2004, when mortar rounds hit Camp Cooke in Taji, Iraq. He was based with the Army National Guard 39th Support Battalion, 39th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division in Hazen, Ark.
Arthur L. Felder, who had served in the National Guard since 1986, was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star.