The death of 19-year-old Ronald Armston Friday in Chocowinity was felt by his surviving relatives, who are Edgecombe County natives and residents.

Armston's mother, Carrie Armston, lives in Williamston. She is a Tarboro native and a 1963 graduate of W.A. Pattillo High School.

Armston, 62, said her son was in the Chocowinity area last Friday for a National Guard drill when he went boating with his drill sergeant, sergeant and two other men.

She said her son did not like being in water and was not a strong swimmer, so she did not know why he would have made his way into the bay.

Although his cause of death has not been officially announced, Armston said the mud on her son's body ran "two feet" up his legs when it was pulled out of Chocowinity Bay early Saturday morning.

Armston said she had spoken to her son's sergeant about Friday's incident, and that he is "really upset" about her son's death.

"The child was in his care when this happened. Naturally, he feels responsible. If that was me, I'd feel the same way," Armston said.

Until 2001, Armston worked for 22 years in New York as a doctor’s assistant. When her husband, the Rev. Albert Armston, retired that same year, they moved back to North Carolina with their three children.

Armston said they settled in Williamston because the home of her late parents, John Arthur Williams Sr. and Martha Elizabeth Williams, on East Saint James Street was damaged by Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Willie Williams, Ronald Armston's uncle and a Tarboro resident, said that his nephew and he planned to start a band at Union Baptist Church on East Saint John Street. Carrie Armston said she regularly attended the church.

They had not gotten the act together quite yet, but Williams said his nephew would've played the drums in the band like he did at Williamston High School before graduating last May.

Carrie Armston called those plans "a little secret" her brother likes to make with his nieces and nephews, "because he loves them so much."

Ronald Armston joined the National Guard in February 2007. He was a psychology major at Elizabeth City State University.