A Bay Area soldier has been killed in the Iraq War. The Department of Defense says 22-year-old Army Airborne Sergeant John Aragon of Antioch died Thursday in Kadamiyah, Iraq.

Aragon died when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device.

His family now not only mourning his death, but is questioning the circumstances, and whether it could have been prevented.

"They send them out in broken-down equipment. He had to get his own bullet-proof vest, they didn't get one for him. I actually had to go to a military store out here, buy one for him, and mail it to him," said the soldier's father, John Aragon Senior.