…mother of GDF rank Shaqueel Deheart

25340 PRIVATE Shaqueel Deheart of Lot 9 Paradise Village West Coast Berbice (WCB) is the youngest of the three soldiers who died during an explosion at Camp Stephenson, Timehri, on Thursday, and his mother described him as a loving and caring son who will be greatly missed.

Deheart, 20, attended Bush Lot Secondary School in WCB before joining the Army in 2018. He was one of five siblings. His mother Melissa Hutson said that she raised her five children as a single parent. Ms. Hutson told the Guyana Chronicle that Shaqueel joined the Army like many other youths in the area not because he wanted to, but partly because he wanted employment so he could provide economic support to her and his other younger siblings.

“He said that he had grown up and he wanted to work so he could help provide for myself and his brothers and sisters. He wanted to help our family situation where I was a single parent,” a tearful Hutson related. “He was proud of himself as a soldier,” she added.
The woman who is a Sweeper Cleaner at the Belladrum Secondary School said that she lives at her parents’ home at Lot 9 Paradise, and, in recent weeks, she and Shaqueel had been discussing plans to build their own home aback of her parents’ house. “He had this dream of helping me to build a home for us. His last few days with us were good,” Hutson said.

She said he spent the entire week home and left for work Tuesday afternoon of this week. “He was a good loving and thoughtful son,” she said. A grieving neighbour said of the deceased lad: “He was so young: he didn’t even lose his mother’s features.”