Sports

NASCAR race will honor JBER soldier killed in 2007 bomb blast

A JBER soldier who was killed in a 2007 bomb blast in Iraq will be among 40 fallen soldiers honored Sunday in NASCAR's Coca Cola 600.

Cody Putman's name will appear on the windshield of driver Daniel Suarez's No. 19 Toyota Camry at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Putman, of Lafayette, Indiana, was a 22-year-old paratrooper serving with JBER's 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division when he was killed.

He was buried in the rubble from a truck bomb that also killed John Borbonus, 19, of Boise, Idaho.

Forty fallen soldiers will be honored during Sunday's Memorial Day weekend race, which is being called "600 Miles of Remembrance."

"Cody's name on a car? That's just awesome," Anchorage's Dustin Slinker, the owner of the Bait Shack on Ship Creek, told the Lafayette Journal & Courier, Putman's hometown newspaper.

Slinker was Putman's sergeant and survived three hours buried in the rubble that April day south of Baghdad, he told the Journal & Courier. The two men graduated from the same Lafayette high school but didn't meet until they were stationed together at JBER, the paper reported.

All 40 cars in Sunday's Sprint Cup series will bear the name of a fallen soldier. To view a gallery of those being honored, visit nascar.com.

Beth Bragg

Beth Bragg wrote about sports and other topics for the ADN for more than 35 years, much of it as sports editor. She retired in October 2021. She's contributing coverage of Alaskans involved in the 2022 Winter Olympics.

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