By Erica Solvig
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Moore

A 25-year-old soldier from Hamilton was shot in the back and killed during night fire training on a rifle range at Fort Hood, Texas, this weekend.

Sgt. Benjamin Franklin Moore II, the father of a 2-month-old daughter, was shooting at targets at the army base's Clear Creek Rifle Range Friday night when another soldier, waiting behind him, accidentally discharged a M-16 rifle and hit Moore in the back, said Maj. Vic Harris, the base's First Cavalry Division spokesman.

Moore was airlifted to the local hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 9 p.m. Friday.

Moore was a member of the 1-9 Cav, an infantry battalion in the First Cavalry Division. He joined the Army in April 1999 as a way to pay for college, and had been stationed in Germany and Kosovo, said Shauna Moore, his wife for little more than a year.

He had been stationed at Fort Hood in central Texas since September, according to family members. Mrs. Moore joined him there in January after giving birth to their first child in December.

"He just fell in love with her and wouldn't take his eyes off her," she said of their two-month-old daughter, Hannah Marie. "He was great with her."

Besides his wife and daughter, Moore is survived by his mother, Billie Moore of Golf Manor; father, Benjamin Moore of Middletown; younger sisters Erin and LaKisha Moore of Hamilton; and younger brother Marty Moore, who also is stationed at Fort Hood and awaiting deployment to Turkey.

Plans for a memorial service were not final Sunday afternoon.

"He was a man with strength of character and everybody looked up to him," said his mother, who flew to Texas Sunday after soldiers on base paid for her ticket. "Our whole family is just grieving. We're really going to miss him."

E-mail esolvig@enquirer.com