Kansas mother’s promise to her war-injured son on life support comes true

A Kansas mother’s promise to her son while he was on life support after being injured while serving in Iraq is about to come true.

Roughly 20 miles of U.S. 166 between Arkansas City and South Haven will be named after U.S. Army Sgt. Evan Seam Parker, who died in October 2005 after being hit by a roadside bomb while checking vehicles with other soldiers. He was 25.

While he was on life support, his mother made a promise that his name would always be remembered.

A dedication ceremony for the Sgt. Evan S. Parker Memorial Highway is planned for Saturday in South Haven, where Parker grew up and competed in football, basketball and track while in high school. The ceremony is at 2 p.m. at South Haven Community Church, 314 Main.

Parker’s mother, Anita Faye Dixon, described her son as competitive and loving, according to the Gold Star Family Registry that honors fallen soldiers. He had blonde hair, blue eyes and freckles all over. As a boy, he despised the freckles.

Dixon would tell her middle son that the freckles were God’s kiss marks, according to the registry, and he would reply: “Can we tell God to quit kissing me.”

Parker, who has two sons, received his first Purple Heart after being injured while serving in Iraq in May 2005. He also received a Bronze Star. When he came back to the states while on leave that summer, his mother noticed the war had worn on him and made him tired, the TV station KMOV reported.

He was reserved and didn’t want to talk about the war.

In October, while back in Iraq, he started to open up and called home every day, including to his mother the day before he was fatally injured to tell her he loved her, Dixon told KMOV.

The next day, Dixon got a call from the Army that her son’s unit was attacked and he was hit by shrapnel from an improvised explosive device and there was no brain activity, KMOV reported.

The Army flew Dixon to Germany, so she could be by her son’s side. She told the TV station about the last words she said to her son.

“I said ‘Evan, this is mom, I’m here, I made it, I love you,”’ she said, adding he then moved his head to the side, against her hand. “I told him you will always be remembered, you will never be forgotten and your name will constantly be spoken.”

There were more than 4,400 U.S. soldiers killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to the Department of Defense.