| Buddies Brandon Lefebvre, from left, Anthony Abbate, Mike Wiebe and Nick Bevers, hang out in Wiebe's basement in Rolling Meadows. They all joined the Marine Corps and were home for Christmas. |
 |
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
Posted on 12/31/2005 9:25:02 AM PST by KeyLargo
Daily Herald Willing to die for each other
Five Rolling Meadows friends leave childhood fun behind, but not bonds as they prepare to ship out as Marines
By Andrew Schroedter Daily Herald Staff Writer Posted Saturday, December 31, 2005
Picture this: Five childhood buddies from Rolling Meadows grow up within a few blocks of one another.
From kindergarten and into high school they are inseparable: trading insults, rooting for the Cubs and shooting pool at Quentin Corner Pocket Billiard in Palatine.
Now, the friends plan on fighting together, not on suburban street corners, but in the villages and cities of Iraq.
The buddies — Brandon Lefebvre, 18; Anthony Abbate, 19; Mike Wiebe, 18; Nick Bevers, 20; and Phil Orchell, 18 — all enlisted in the Marine Corps.
With the exception of Orchell, who’s still in boot camp in San Diego, the friends now await word on where they’ll be deployed.
Buddies Brandon Lefebvre, from left, Anthony Abbate, Mike Wiebe and Nick Bevers, hang out in Wiebe's basement in Rolling Meadows. They all joined the Marine Corps and were home for Christmas.
Courtesy of the Lefebvre family Brandon Lefebvre, second from left, in formation at his U.S. Marine Corps graduation in San Diego.
Iraq is a possibility. So is Afghanistan.
Lefebvre is in crash fighter rescue and likely won’t see any combat. The others will shoulder rifles and probably police Iraqi or Afghani streets. A May or June departure is likely, they predict.
The four friends took a short break from training to return home this Christmas.
Back in Rolling Meadows, they’ve done what they always did growing up: watch the Bears; shoot pool and talk about girls and auto racing.
“We sound like losers,” Lefebvre joked, describing what they do for fun.
In a year or two, Lefebvre and his buddies may look back fondly on these simple rites of suburban existence.
That’s not to say they aren’t ready to go to war. It’s just that war is complicated and their lives, for the moment anyway, are not.
Abbate is the loudest of the bunch. He’s also the smallest. He thrived in boot camp and he loves being a soldier.
“It was 13 weeks of hell,” he said about the training. “But I would do it all over again if you asked me.”
Abbate’s dad was a Marine, and no one who knew Anthony was surprised when he signed up, said Art Lefebvre, Brandon’s dad.
Abbate was the first of the five to go. He says he knew from the age of 4 that he would be a soldier. He loved to play war and, as a boy, affixed an American flag to his bicycle.
“I was brainwashed,” he says jokingly.
Some would characterize Wiebe as the strong, silent type. He’s the biggest guy and the worst marksman.
While his friends talk, he’ll occasionally lean over and kiss his girlfriend.
Bevers is the oldest but, like Wiebe, he listens more than he talks. His confidence is of a more quiet kind, but he acknowledges that joining the Marines boosted his self-esteem.
“You walk taller,” he said. “You walk with a little more pride in yourself.”
The decision to skip college may have been the hardest for Wiebe, an offensive linemen for Rolling Meadows High School who was recruited by Northern Illinois University.
Instead, on his 18th birthday, Wiebe did what his friends before him had done — went to the Marine recruiting station in Schaumburg to sign up.
He wanted to enlist sooner, like Abbate and Lefebvre, but his mother wouldn’t consent.
Wiebe, a tall, muscular kid who lost 35 pounds in boot camp, said that’s no longer an issue. His brother also plans to join the Marines and the siblings enjoy their parents’ full support.
“It takes a lot for an 18-year-old kid to sign up for the Marine Corps,” said Brian Wiebe, Mike’s father. “Especially during these times.”
The friends admit that one of the reasons they joined was because their buddies did. In all, 11 of their friends and siblings have enlisted in some branch of the armed forces.
Of course, the events of Sept. l1 resonated with them all.
So did the idea of belonging to something bigger than themselves.
“We had our own personal brotherhood before we joined the greatest brotherhood there is,” Lefebvre said.
For the soft-spoken, blond-haired Bevers, the Marines weren’t a lifelong dream. Instead, it was a way out of a job at a tire and battery that made him restless with its workaday routine.
“I wanted to get out,” Bevers said. “I wanted to see a little more than here.”
That’s not as easy as it sounds because Bevers doesn’t own a car.
However, he’s adept at fixing them and just put a new intercooler into Abbate’s Pontiac Grand Prix GTS.
For the thoughtful, easy going Lefebvre, the Marines were a chance to get some job training. As a boy, he wanted to fight fires. In the military there’s plenty of them.
Many of the boys’ peers oppose America’s involvement in Iraq. And they are well aware they might go to Iraq just as support for the war is eroding nationwide.
It doesn’t rattle them or, if it does, they don’t let on. Even if there was no war in the Middle East the four insist they still would have enlisted.
“I’m not going over there to make them free,” Wiebe said, explaining his motivation was not the Iraqis but his fellow Jarheads. “I’m going because there’s other Marines (in Iraq).”
Art Lefebvre believes the Marines have been good for his son and his friends.
“I think it gave them some direction,” he said. “It gave them purpose.”
And adrenalized their bravado.
“I’m willing to get blown away for other Marines over there,” Abbate said.
In the basement of Wiebe’s split-level home, the young men are assembled around a long, comfortable sofa.
They are joined by Wiebe’s parents and brother, Art Lefebvre, girlfriends and two buddies, one of whom recently joined the Air Force.
Art Lefebvre said this Christmas will be the last time for a while that the boys will be in the same room.
But they all hope to return to Rolling Meadows someday.
Lefebvre and Wiebe want to work as firefighters. Bevers sees himself in law enforcement, maybe the sheriff’s office. Abbate too wants to be in law enforcement.
“I want to be a Rolling Meadows police officer,” he said. “That’s my goal.”
The unspoken goal for all of them, of course, is to stay alive. To return safely from wherever they’re sent.
It’s unrealistic to expect the friends will be the same when they return.
Another goal, then, is for the friends to return from war better, closer and more cohesive than they were.
“We would die for one another,” Abbate said.
dailyherald.com
"Many of the boys’ peers oppose America’s involvement in Iraq. And they are well aware they might go to Iraq just as support for the war is eroding nationwide."
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. Dec. 13-14, 2005. N=900 registered voters nationwide.
Do you think the Iraqi people would be better off or worse off if U.S. troops left Iraq now?" Better 20% Worse 64% Same 6% Unsure 10%
Amen. Reporter could not resist editorializing.
What he meant to write is "... while I am personally against our efforts in Iraq, and hope we lose, and can't understand why these guys would volunteer, I guess they really aren't complete losers."
If they can just keep repeating it over and over, maybe they can make it so.
Great story..... I find the part where it mention that 11 other siblings or friends had join the service amazing.
| Buddies Brandon Lefebvre, from left, Anthony Abbate, Mike Wiebe and Nick Bevers, hang out in Wiebe's basement in Rolling Meadows. They all joined the Marine Corps and were home for Christmas. |
|
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
With all due respect, that poll is irrelevant to the comment the line in the story. Even many anti-war folks believe that the Iraqi people would be worse off. The line was editorializing or debatable, but your poll doesn't go against it.
rodguy911, I changed my poster name from Rocco to KeyLargo when I first saw the movie on cable T.V. This was during the 2000 election. I called WLS AM in Chicago and played the tape of Edward G. Robinson's dialogue from the movie Key Largo. From there it seemed to spread all over the media.
"I'll be getting guys elected
mayor and governor. . .
. . .before you ever get a $ raise!
How many of those guys in office
owe everything to me?
I made them.
I made them, just like a tailor
makes a suit of clothes.
I take a nobody, teach him what to say,
get his name in the papers.
I pay for his campaign expenses.
Dish out a lot of groceries and coal.
Get my boys to bring the voters out.
Then count the votes again. . .
. . .till they added up right,
and he was elected."
Edward G. Robinson as Johnny Rocco
Key Largo (1948)
The only message I have for the DUmpster Diver DUmocrats for 2006 is:
HAVE A NICE FLIGHT!
Not only is the reporter biased, but he doesn't know his @$$ from a hole in the ground by referring to this brand new Marine as a soldier!
God bless them all!
My dad and his buddies did this. My dad was the only one to actually go USMC, the rest chickened out and went in other branches. All of their group that is now deceased, ended up with an engraved brick, amazingly, right next to each other at the Veteran's Park in my hometown, under the USMC flag. Crying, when I went to see Dad's brick for the first time-when I saw the rest, I burst out laughing!
I am proud of every soldier, airman, sailor, and marine. There is no finer American than one willing to forego MANY rights for the defense of this nation.
Hopefully, you'll shed a tear for your father's friends someday.
EXCUSE ME?
I was laughing because they'd all be THRILLED-
AS WAS I.
Get some, guys!!
Freema,
I'm sorry that I misunderstood your post. I even read your post a few times to make sure, but it still looked to me like you were laughing at your father's friends. Please forgive me.
Freema,
let me add to my apology: I didn't mean it to come across so negatively in my first reply. There was no intent to squabble on my part.
Have a great year!
I'm sorry. I looked back at it, and can see how you could have perceived that-
I knew what I meant! Didn't mean anyone else did, though. DOH on me!
It was a really emotional moment, trying so hard NOT to bawl my eyes out, then laughing sooooooooooohard - giant bellylaugh- the very next minute as name after name kept popping out at me, and realizing that they were together, in this, at last. What a moment.
reporter's doesn't understand that marines will see a job through.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
