There aren't many children who get a BMW 535IS as their first vehicle. Granted it was an older model with over 100,000 miles on it, but it was a good, solid vehicle. Joey's father, Kevin Graves, had full confidence that it would keep his boy safe. One day, at 0715 in the morning, Kevin got a call testing that faith. Joey had been in a car accident with his good friend Cori on their way to school in a very rural area of upper California. The phone call was from Joey. "Dad, I flipped the car." Born on December 28, 1984, in Castro Valley, California, Joseph A. Graves was always a calm, collected young man. He was an only child to father, Joseph Kevin Graves and mother, Maryan Perreira. His father describes him as an absolutely wonderful joy as a child. When he was three years old, his parents divorced and Joey went to live with his mother. Even though he lived with his mother, he wasn't very far from his dad. His parents maintained a good relationship and didn't have a problem sharing Joey's life. He would spend the weeks with his mom and go to see his dad on the weekends. When Joey was 9 years old, Maryan called Kevin and said that Joey ought to go live with his dad. Kevin readily accepted with a simple, "send him on up." It was the opportunity that Kevin had been waiting and preparing for the last couple of years. From that time forward, Joey was very active in the youth program at Delta Community Presbyterian Church in Discovery Bay, California. His life would come to be defined by the values and beliefs he was taught growing up in the church. In the 6th grade, Joey started playing basketball in the local church youth league. He was a hard working point guard and continued playing through the 8th grade. He wasn't a tall kid by any means. After all, his mother was only 4'11". Kevin was his coach on that team, and they developed friendships that lasted all through Joey's high school years. Even though he enjoyed the relationships, Joey enjoyed the individual sports more. Joey's favorite sport was golf. He and his father would frequently take golf vacations and just enjoy the time together competing against each another. He was the kind of kid that didn't need to be the most popular boy in school. Joey preferred quality of relationship over quantity. His goal was just to be a good friend, not necessarily to have a lot of them. Joey was also very focused in everything he did in life. He graduated from Liberty High School in 2003 with a 3.8 GPA. School came relatively easy for Joey. His dad would continually ask him "where is your homework" and "any homework tonight". The answer was always... "nope". Like almost any parent, Kevin was concerned. The explanation was that school was pretty easy and he would always get his homework done in class. He was a smart kid, took tests well and made the most of his time. He was a pensive, thoughtful person - extremely thoughtful. It wasn't uncommon for Joey to place the needs of others above his own needs. He would often make himself uncomfortable just to make others more so. He was slow to express his opinion and quick to think before opening his mouth. Joey and his Dad shared a very honest and open relationship with each other. Trust was a big thing between them. Kevin likes to say, "We grew up together, Joe taught me to be a father as I taught him to be a man." The results speak for themselves. Joey loved spending time with his grandparents. His grandfather was an educator and loved to teach Joey about history. Their relationship was very close. Joey spent most of his summers hanging out with his grandparents who would take him on trips around California and the western United States. One such trip was seven days of flight training at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. At the end of the week, Joey was piloting a plane, with a co-pilot, of course. He was only fourteen at the time. Each summer Joey would return to his father with grand stories of the things he did with his grandparents. He'd share all the interesting and obscure facts he was taught as well. When he was fifteen years old, Joey got his first job at the Discovery Bay Country Club as a cart attendant. It was his job to get the carts out, get them ready and lined up, and clean them out for the club members. Not long after he began working there, he was given the duty of locking up the gates to the club, something normally reserved for the marshal to do. It was immediately apparent to the management that Joey was a loyal and trustworthy teenager. Even at just fifteen years of age, Joey was seeking out responsibility. This hunger would stay with him into the Army. While attending Liberty High School, 15-year old Joey met a beautiful young 14-year old girl named Cori Junice Maningas. Unfortunately, she couldn't stand him. It wasn't anything specific that he did or said, she just "didn't know him and didn't have a chance to get to know him." But, a year later, Cori was walking around her neighborhood when they got a chance to get to know each other better. They were good friends for a few months before they started dating. During that time, they built up a lasting friendship and bond. From that point on, they were inseparable until he joined the Army and left for Korea during her senior year. That was another story unto itself. In August 2003, Joey came home and told his father that he wanted to join the Army. His dad shrugged him off with a simple, "sure you do." Joey was serious. He wanted to get some military experience and then go on to bigger and better things. He had the smarts and willpower to do anything he set his mind to. He was always looking for a challenge. Joey was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for his One Station Unit Training (basic training and advanced individual training - AIT). He did his Basic and Military Police training through the harsh winter at Ft. Leonard Wood. Both his Mom and Dad went back to Missouri to proudly watch their son graduate from Basic. It was at that time that Joey informed his parents that after he finished his AIT, he was going to Fort Benning to attend the Basic Airborne Course. "Imagine my surprise," mused his father. "Here was a kid that wasn't real aggressive. When we would go on ski trips with the youth group at church, he always seemed so intimidated by the steep slopes. He would spend more time in the lodge with his buddies than on the slopes. Now he's okay with jumping out of airplanes? Unbelievable!" During his basic training, Joey had an opportunity to take some Christmas exodus leave and visit his family. On January 1, 2004, Cori helped Joey get his stuff ready to go back to training. During a normal conversation, Joey casually asked Cori to marry him. Nothing special about it. No frills. No surprise announcement for all to see. Joey wasn't like that. He was very low key. The question had come so seamlessly, Cori wasn't sure what to make of it. "Are you serious?" she asked him. "Why would I be joking?" Joey replied. "Well, you asked me like it was no big deal." In his usual no-nonsense way, Joey answered, "We've talked about it for a long time, so it shouldn't be a big deal." Joey wasn't a flashy guy. He didn't like to make big deals out of things. The next day, he returned to basic training engaged to the future Cori Graves. She wouldn't see him again until he graduated from Airborne school. Joey told his dad that after Airborne school he'd have to report directly to his next assignment. He wouldn't be able to visit with family or take leave. His dad was bummed. Cori's brother secretly flew Joey home to surprise his dad before being shipped off to Korea. At 2am, Kevin woke up to someone pounding on his door. He immediately thought it may have been one of his neighbors messing with him. He opened the door to find Joey with a toothy grin. His dad was speechless. They had convinced him that Joey wasn't going to be able to come home before his yearlong assignment in a foreign land. They spent an awesome two weeks together before Joey shipped off to Korea. During the first Christmas that Joey was in Korea, Cori went to visit him for a few weeks. She arrived on December 27th, one day before his 20th birthday. It was a good opportunity to see what kind of life he had as a Soldier. He gave her a tour of downtown Seoul with his roommate, a KATUSA (Korean Augmentation to the United States Army), who showed them around. One night they went to an underground Korean restaurant. Joey handed her something and told her to take a drink. "It was the most disgusting drink in the world," she remarked after her first experience with Soju, a Korean alcoholic beverage made from rice and other ingredients and usually having a 45% alcohol level. On his birthday, they stayed at the Dragon Hill lodge, a five-star resort hotel near Camp Humphreys. That night they had a BBQ outside in the dead of winter. The temperature must have been easily in the teens. Everyone must have thought they were crazy. She spent some time hanging around with Joey's friends in the barracks and experienced life as a human sardine as they traveled the Korean subway system. In March 2005, Joey left Korea and was reassigned to the 110th Military Police Company, 720th Military Police Battalion, 89th Military Police Brigade, Fort Hood, Texas. In May, Cori flew to Austin to visit with him for a week. Then, she went back to California to get her things and moved back to Texas to live with Joey. Joey realized that he was going to be deploying soon and that Cori would be better off living with her sister in Houston until he got back. Once he got back from Iraq, he was going to move her down to live with him at Fort Hood. On his days off, Joey would make the three to four hour drive to spent time with her. Throughout this time, Cori and Joey debated whether or not to wait until after the deployment to get married. There were pros and cons to each. Wanting to make a good, informed choice, Joey went to his Platoon Sergeant for advice. His advice was simple and to the point: "If getting married beforehand will give you the peace of mind and help keep you focused on the mission, then do it." Again, it wasn't important for him to have a big, elaborate wedding. What was important to him was that Cori would be taken care of in the event something happened to him. On September 24, 2005, Joey and Cori went to a Justice of the Peace in Killeen and exchanged vows. Joey didn't immediately tell his father. His dad was scheduled to get married and Joey didn't want the news of his wedding to overshadow his father's wedding. Kevin had asked his son to be the best man and Joey wasn't going to let his father down. Kevin and his new bride, Leianne, had planned their whole wedding around Joey and Cori being there so Joey could be his best man. They were both a big part of the wedding. Upon returning from his honeymoon, Joey and Cori told Kevin that they were getting married in October, but they weren't very good liars. They had already been married. In the big picture, a couple of weeks didn't make much difference and his Dad wasn't going to make a big deal of it. Little did Kevin know, this was one of the last times he would see his son alive. Three weeks later, his son deployed to Iraq. Another person that Joey liked to spend time with was his new best friend, SPC Shanon Greer. Shanon returned from Korea shortly after Joey did. In Texas, Joey served as Shanon's gunner and the two would hang out on the weekends. Shanon had a little three year old daughter named Vanissa (last two photos below) that Joey loved to play with. "[Joey] was very outgoing and always tried to make people laugh," Shanon remembered of his friend. "If someone was down, he would try to build up their esteem. And he LOVED kids." If there was a kid around, Joey could be found goofing around with them and making weird faces. Joey loved to take Nissa's hats and glasses and put them on for her. After awhile, she began referring to him as Uncle Joey. Whenever they'd go places, like Sea World in San Antonio, Joey would pick Nissa up and carry her around the park so she could have fun too. If you didn't know better, you'd think that Nissa was Joey's flesh and bone. They were tight. In November 2005, the 110th MP Company deployed to Camp Ashraf, Iraq, approximately 60 miles northwest of Baghdad. Shanon and Joey were on the same team for about 4-5 months. After that, they were assigned to different platoons and teams. However, they were still roommates. "Joey loved movies. His nickname was 'Blockbuster' because he had a bunch of movies that he'd buy online and have shipped to us," reflected Shanon. "One of his favorite movies was 'Wedding Crashers'". In addition to movies, Joey had a great love for Tom Clancy novels. He also spent his free time playing Halo. He played acoustic guitar and bass. His loved playing Metallica, Journey, Dream Theater, AC/DC, Def Leppard and the Eagles. He loved all kinds of music from classical to jazz to just about anything. A lot of that he owed to his grandfather, who was also very much into music and even helped develop a music department at a university in California. But, those aren't the things for which Joey's friends remember him. Joey always had a Bible with him wherever he went. As often as he could, Joey would organize Bible studies and invited others to join in with him. He was a very faithful person to his God and his religion. Shanon remembers him as a very religious person. "He was always trying to talk me into going to these Bible studies with him. He attended church as much as he could and read his Bible faithfully before going to bed each night." Joey and Shanon's mission with the 110th MP Company Sentinels was mostly detainee operations. It was their responsibility to make sure that detainees were cared for, fed, kept warm or cool depending on temperature, accounted for and processed. In the words of Shanon, "it was babysitting duty." After a few months of that, the Bulgarians took over the mission and their duties shifted to area and convoy security. Joey was a guy that never openly complained about anything. He always did his mission to the utmost of his ability. At least once a week he found time to call Cori. He was very good at keeping her updated with regular emails as well. To keep in touch with his friends, he started a MySpace page. On July 25, 2006, Cori was at home enjoying her day off. She hadn't heard from Joey for about a week and was anticipated his call either that day or the next. At around 6 pm, she heard two knocks on the door. When she opened the door, a Chaplain and Army Sergeant were standing in the opening. Joey was killed when his convoy came under enemy fire in Baghdad. Military personnel described the attack as "a very well-organized ambush" on the convoy. Only a "very well-organized ambush" could have ended Joey's plan for himself and his family. He and Cori talked often about starting a family of their own after they finished school and they had spent some time as a couple together. He was going to leave the Army sometime in September or October of 2008 to join the FBI or CIA. He had been saving his deployment money to buy their first house in the Fort Hood area when he returned. For him, owning a house was a big goal. Joey Graves was 21 years old.
LINKS TO SPC Joey Graves Joey Graves Memorial Golf Tournament
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