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Brooksville Post Office Dedicated To Marine Killed In Iraq

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By Tony Marrero, Hernando Today

Published: November 9, 2007

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BROOKSVILLE - Another Hernando County post office bears the name of a local fallen serviceman.

Roughly 150 people gathered Friday morning for a ceremony to dedicate the post office branch on Aviation Loop Drive in honor of Marine Sgt. Lea Robert Mills.

Mills, a 2002 graduate of Hernando High School and member of the 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion, was killed April 28, 2006, by a roadside bomb while on patrol in Iraq's Al Anbar province. He was 21.

Among the crowd who stood among the oak trees during the ceremony were some two dozen employees of the branch who had donned red T-shirts for the occasion that proclaimed Mills as "an American hero."

Sgt. Josh Perdue, a high school buddy of Mills, remembered his friend as "very competitive" and a "jokester" who was almost always smiling.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please understand we are here because of men and women like Lea, who have made or are willing to make these sacrifices," Perdue said.

Dee Mills said her son would be honored by the dedication but would have a couple of requests.

"Lea would ask you to honor his brothers and sisters in arms, and you can do that with a simple letter of gratitude," she said. "And he would ask you to pray for them every day."

U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville, filed the legislation to have the post office dedicated to Mills. A plaque bearing Mills' name will be hung in the post office lobby.

The Spring Hill post office branch on Philatelic Drive was dedicated to U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Michael Schafer in 2006, also as a result of a bill filed by Brown-Waite.

Schafer, a 1998 graduate of Springstead High School in Spring Hill, was killed in July 2005 while leading his team on patrol in Oruzgan, Afghanistan.

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