MOUNTAIN CITY, Tenn. (AP) -- About 200 family and friends gathered on a cold windy cemetery hillside in a tiny northeast Tennessee community to bury Army Spc. Fred Greene, one of 13 soldiers killed in the massacre at Fort Hood.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates sat behind the 29-year-old combat engineer's wife, daughters and parents as a chaplain and a company commander read a graveside service near Mountain City on Wednesday. It was followed by a 21-gun salute and the playing of taps by a lone bugler, next to the rural Baptist church where Greene once sung in the choir.

High school friend Banian Banner says Greene "tried to do what he was supposed to do for his country."

Greene joined the military in 2008 in hopes of building a better life for his family outside this hardscrabble community. He was expecting to be sent to Afghanistan.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)