PFC Tyler Iubelt comes home

More than 100 Patriot Patrol motorcycle riders, law enforcement personnel from across southern Illinois, fire trucks, friends and military personnel Monday escorted the funeral coach carrying PFC Tyler Iubelt from Scott Air Force Base in Mascoutah back to Du Quoin Monday.

PFC Iubelt, of Tamaroa, died Saturday, Nov. 12 in a suicide bomber attack on servicemen at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.

Visitation will be held from 3 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, at Searby Funeral Home, 130 S. Washington St. in Du Quoin.

Funeral services will begin at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, at the First Baptist Church, 104 N. Washington St. in Du Quoin. The Rev. Joel Vancil of Sunfield Baptist Church, Tyler's church, will officiate. Burial with full military honors will follow in Sunset Memorial Park.

Hundreds of townspeople lined Main Street and Washington Street in Du Quoin on Monday and a very large American flag flew suspended from a Du Quoin aerial ladder truck at Main and Washington streets.

Some had been waiting for an hour, listening to radios and cell phones that told them were the procession was in its route back to Du Quoin - from Scott Air Force Base, to I-64, to Nashville, Dubois, Tamaroa and finally Du Quoin.

Many along the route held flags as the procession passed. Some were holding back tears. Others openly cried.

Volunteers then gathered in Keyes Park at 1 p.m. Monday to organize the placement of hundreds of flags across Du Quoin and along the route to the cemetery for Wednesday's funeral.

Iubelt, 20, was among four people to die Nov. 12 in the explosion. Another serviceman and two American contractors also were killed. Sixteen U.S. service members and one Polish soldier were wounded.