WELDON SPRING • Those who served with Sgt. Melvin Y. Mora remember his drive, his willingness to help and his unflappable good nature.

On Saturday, they watched as the Army Reserve Center in Weldon Spring was named in his honor. Mora, 27, was a physics student at the University of Missouri-Columbia and a native of Puerto Rico. He enlisted in the Army Reserve in 1998 and was deployed to Iraq in April 2004 with the Reserve’s 245th Maintenance Company.

He was killed June 6, 2004, when he was struck by shrapnel from a mortar attack on Log Base Seitz near Abu Ghraib, Iraq.

“It’s a fitting tribute to a soldier who meant a lot to the soldiers he served with. It’s a permanent remembrance of his sacrifice,” said Maj. Greg Borah of Shelbyville, Ill., who was Mora’s platoon leader in Iraq.

The 245th Maintenance Company had been based on Goodfellow Boulevard in St. Louis, but moved in 2012 to Weldon Spring.

The move to name that center in Mora’s honor was spearheaded by Sgt. 1st Class Alex Turley, who saw a plaque honoring Mora that spurred him to push for the name change.