Wall St. analyst, Iraq casualty; Haverhill Marine dies in Fallujah combat

Boston Globe ^ | November 23, 2004 | Megan Tench and Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff

[bitt]

HAVERHILL -- Called by a sense of duty following the World Trade Center attacks, Dimitrios Gavriel left behind his career as a Wall Street analyst, joined the Marines, and shipped out to Iraq. There he went to the front lines as a lance corporal a decade older than most of his comrades

Last week, Gavriel, 29, was killed in fierce fighting in Fallujah.

[bitt]

'Two weeks before his death on Nov. 18, the Haverhill man told reporters he was ''locked, cocked, and ready to rock" for the coming urban battle. Today, he is mourned, a former New Hampshire high school wrestling champion and a Brown University graduate who wrote poetry and coached children in New York.

Gavriel's death in combat was the tragedy his family feared, but a sacrifice he was willing to make.'

...

[Max Combined]

As long as there are enemies who are willing to die in order to kill us, we need men and women who are willing to place themselves in harm's way in order to defend us.

Thanks to all our men and women in the Armed Forces and God Bless this Marine and his family.

[livius]

Prayers for him and his family.

One of the saddest things about this is that it is the good and the committed who are being killed, while our scum floats around, fat and happy, at the universities thinking up ways to undermine the war and the entire country.

[geedee]

My prayers are with Gavriel and his family. Gavriel and the other brave young men and women like him are the ONLY reason we're the greatest country the world has ever known. I salute you, Gavriel. These tears are for you, sir.

[litehaus]

"while our scum floats around, fat and happy, at the universities thinking up ways to undermine the war and the entire country."

Really gets the blood pressure up,doesn't it....

[TexasTaysor]

You've all said it beautifully

Thanks to this Hero, prayers for you and your family

[gaspar]

That the Marine graduated from an Ivy League university makes this story almost unique in the annals of the war in Iraq. Ivy League graduates DO NOT join the military. They leave the defense of this country to others. They are the new Tories.

[Max Combined]

''This is the first journal I ever kept," Gavriel wrote in one entry in block letters. ''I heard great men kept journals. . . . I'd like to be great."

He got his wish.

The story is worth going to the source to read. This guy could have gone in as an officer candidate, but decided to go as an enlisted man.

It reminds me of a thread I read not too long ago where a journalist claimed that the average IQ of Marines is 90 and that only people with no education or intelligence serve in the ranks.

[Dick Vomer]

''This is the first journal I ever kept," Gavriel wrote in one entry in block letters. ''I heard great men kept journals. . . . I'd like to be great."

He was wrong.... great men don't need journals... they just need to live a life such as his.... what an honorable, brave man.

I am moved to tears for the sorrow of the mother and humbled by this man's sacrifice.

I think this country has lost a great American. God Bless him and his family. They are owed an immeasurable debt of gratitude.

[Cicero]

I pray that Christ has welcomed him into His Kingdom.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Hilly bump.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Mon Nov 22, 4:37 PM ET

This undated photo released in New York by the United States Marine Corps, Monday, Nov. 22, 2004 shows Marine Lance Cpl. Dimitrios Gavriel, 29, of New York, . Gavriel, a Brown Graduate and Wall Street broker joined the Marines when two of his friends died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. He was killed in action Friday, Nov. 19, 2004 in Iraqs Anbar province. (AP Photo/HO, United States Marine Corps.)

[the invisib1e hand]

you know, they told me I was too old to join, when I emailed them in the days following September 11. This is a greater loss.

[TASMANIANRED]

My prayers are with his family.

[eureka!]

Re#3 Well said, sadly. RIP good soldier...

[skeeter]

One of the saddest things about this is that it is the good and the committed who are being killed, while our scum floats around, fat and happy, at the universities thinking up ways to undermine the war and the entire country.

Ain't that the truth.

[CGVet58]

...Really gets the blood pressure up,doesn't it....

...as well as making a morbid case for bringing back some kind of draft, as long as the afore-mentioned pondscum take their place in the firing line.

[BushisTheMan]

May this brave soldier and his two buddies from 9/11 remain forever as friends in heaven. Thoughts and prayers to his family and friends.

[bitt]

don't be so hard on the university crowd...apparently the newly annointed conservatives on campuses all over the country were the ones who DID show up to vote this year; they enjoyed the free concerts and then infiltrated or FReeped/harassed the opposition, they carried on grand discussions on sites, signed up voters that were legitimate! and generally caused great annoyance to their strange/unisexual/liberal professors.

I like to call the 17 to 26 crowd "the 9/11 generation". They were scared "red" that day and started to see the world as NOT a peaceful global village but a world of 'us against them'.

[eureka!]

Good point. But their job would much easier with some balance in the classrooms. Perhaps not--i.e., the youth "rebellion" is against the liberal professors. You are right about the 9/11 generation too. More and more young Blacks, Jews and other typical Rat constituents are the younger ones...