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Posted on 05/30/2006 3:39:15 PM PDT by mountn man
THE FINAL SALUTE
Rocky Mountain News reporter Jim Sheeler and photographer Todd Heisler spent the past year with the Marines stationed at Aurora's Buckley Air Force Base who have found themselves called upon to notify families of the deaths of their sons in Iraq. In each case in this story, the families agreed to let Sheeler and Heisler chronicle their loss and grief. They wanted people to know their sons, the men and women who brought them home, and the bond of traditions more than 200 years old that unite them.
Though readers are led through the story by the white-gloved hand of Maj. Steve Beck, he remains a reluctant hero. He is, he insists, only a small part of the massive mosaic that is the Marine Corps.
By Jim Sheeler
Rocky Mountain News
November 9, 2005
Inside a limousine parked on the airport tarmac, Katherine Cathey looked out at the clear night sky and felt a kick.
"He's moving," she said. "Come feel him. He's moving."
Her two best friends leaned forward on the soft leather seats and put their hands on her stomach.
"I felt it," one of them said. "I felt it."
Outside, the whine of jet engines swelled.
"Oh, sweetie," her friend said. "I think this is his plane."
As the three young women peered through the tinted windows, Katherine squeezed a set of dog tags stamped with the same name as her unborn son: James J. Cathey.
"He wasn't supposed to come home this way," she said, tightening her grip on the tags, which were linked by a necklace to her husband's wedding ring.
The women looked through the back window. Then the 23-year-old placed her hand on her pregnant belly.
"Everything that made me happy is on that plane," she said.
They watched as airport workers rolled a conveyor belt to the rear of the plane, followed by six solemn Marines.
Katherine turned from the window and closed her eyes.
"I don't want it to be dark right now. I wish it was daytime," she said. "I wish it was daytime for the rest of my life. The night is just too hard."
Suddenly, the car door opened. A white-gloved hand reached into the limousine from outside - the same hand that had knocked on Katherine's door in Brighton five days earlier.
The man in the deep blue uniform knelt down to meet her eyes, speaking in a soft, steady voice.
"Katherine," said Maj. Steve Beck, "it's time."
Closer than brothers
The American Airlines 757 couldn't have landed much farther from the war.
The plane arrived in Reno on a Friday evening, the beginning of the 2005 "Hot August Nights" festival - one of the city's biggest - filled with flashing lights, fireworks, carefree music and plenty of gambling.
When a young Marine in dress uniform had boarded the plane to Reno, the passengers smiled and nodded politely. None knew he had just come from the plane's cargo hold, after watching his best friend's casket loaded onboard.
At 24 years old, Sgt. Gavin Conley was only seven days younger than the man in the coffin. The two had met as 17-year-olds on another plane - the one to boot camp in California. They had slept in adjoining top bunks, the two youngest recruits in the barracks.
All Marines call each other brother. Conley and Jim Cathey could have been. They finished each other's sentences, had matching infantry tattoos etched on their shoulders, and cracked on each other as if they had grown up together - which, in some ways, they had.
When the airline crew found out about Conley's mission, they bumped him to first-class. He had never flown there before. Neither had Jim Cathey.
On the flight, the woman sitting next to him nodded toward his uniform and asked if he was coming or going. To the war, she meant.
He fell back on the words the military had told him to say: "I'm escorting a fallen Marine home to his family from the situation in Iraq."
The woman quietly said she was sorry, Conley said.
Then she began to cry.
When the plane landed in Nevada, the pilot asked the passengers to remain seated while Conley disembarked alone. Then the pilot told them why.
The passengers pressed their faces against the windows. Outside, a procession walked toward the plane. Passengers in window seats leaned back to give others a better view. One held a child up to watch.
From their seats in the plane, they saw a hearse and a Marine extending a white-gloved hand into a limousine, helping a pregnant woman out of the car.
On the tarmac, Katherine Cathey wrapped her arm around the major's, steadying herself. Then her eyes locked on the cargo hold and the flag-draped casket. Link The Final Salute
A fitting read on this Memorial Day. Thank you, mountn man
obituaries are this writers bread and butter and claim to fame.....
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22by+Jim+Sheeler%22&btnG=Google+Search
Very good read. Thanks.
Does that make it any less important or impactful?
Millions of Americans go through life unaffected (emotionally, not circumstancially)by the sacrifice of many. (today and in years past)
Every soldier injured or killed needs to be grieved for. Not just by his family and friends, but by this nation as a whole. That is the only way that we can all appreciate the freedom this country provides us, by the blood of others.
If I don't grieve and value the loss of our soldiers, how can I value what they fight and die for.
I never want our soldiers to be "just" another name mentioned on the news or a number killed today by a roadside bomb.
I realize by your name that you were in Viet Nam, and I thank you for your service. And I really mean Thank You.
I never served in the military, but I never want to take for granted those who did, and what it provides me. And I don't want anyone else to take it for granted either.
Photos and additional comments can be found on the earlier threads.
I was referring to the WRITER....not the feelings of readers. The dude seems to have a longterm fascination with grief.
Oh well, people need to read it every once in awhile, just to reawaken themselves.
With a USMC Infantrymen son in Anbar this is difficult for me to read, the odd knock is every parents fear .
I think about how hard it was for my parents while I was in country, mail took forever ,once while recovering on the USS SANCTUARY they patched a phone with a Ham service to make a quick call home to say I was going to be OK.
I think about how hard it was for my grandparents for my career Navy father had been in the Navy for a few years and was home on leave 7 December 1941. Having to join the Yorktown swim team in '42 I wonder if he ever saw mail from home? Did my grandparents ever hear how my dad was doing?
Today with satellite phones in the base camp and mothers data mining the Internet we learn things quickly, sometimes too quick.
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Words fail me but the tears are streaming down my cheeks....
Godspeed.
Powerful...thanks for posting.
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