Posted on 03/04/2003 6:13:01 AM PST by the_devils_advocate_666
Gene Vance Jr.
DONATIONS can be made to the Gene Vance Jr. Memorial Fund at WesBanco, 1350 Earl Core Road, Morgantown, WV 26505.
ON THE WEB: The Gene Vance Jr. Memorial Web site: www.genevancejr.com.
BY JAKE STUMP
The Dominion Post
It's been more than a year since Staff Sgt. Gene Vance Jr. ventured his tall, lanky frame into lands unknown.
Osama bin Laden was America's No. 1 villain, and soldiers like Vance were called upon to wipe out his terror networks worldwide.
War snatched Vance from his Morgantown life and threw him into the heart of this new battle, in Afghanistan, while a loving wife would anxiously await his weekly phone calls at home.
Now, even nine months after an enemy soldier fatally shot Vance in eastern Afghanistan, Lisa Vance continues to wait for her phone to ring.
She expects to hear her husband jabbering on the other end and commenting on the type of bicycles people ride over there.
She'd like him to enter the living room and kiss her hello in typical Gene Vance fashion.
While the widow longs for her husband to return in a physical sense, she vows to keep his spirit alive among the American people.
And in the coming days, she'll be launching a few projects to help do that.
Following her husband's death, Lisa Vance established a fund for the fallen soldier at the suggestion of military officers.
"I didn't need the money," she said. "I was the primary breadwinner of the household. They just said to set up a fund because people wanted to donate."
Since May 2002, the community has donated nearly $2,000 to the Gene Vance Jr. Memorial Fund.
Lisa Vance hasn't made any concrete plans for the fund yet.
"I haven't really sat down and thought about it," she said. "It's weird to me. Should I go out there to convince people to name stuff after him? Once we get out of this arctic freeze and it's springtime, and I'm actually outside, I'll think of some good ideas."
She's considered placing benches along the rail-trail or sponsoring a bicycle race in her husband's name.
Vance on the Web
For now, she's focused on a more personal project: a Gene Vance Web site.
A software project manager at SAIC in Westover, Lisa Vance hopes to do justice for the man who fought for a cause.
The Web site will contain the widow's stories of Gene Vance, pictures and a guest book.
Its development has taken more time than Lisa Vance bargained for, though. Only the home page is complete.
"It's painful, really painful to work on," she said. "It's hard for me to do. I just sit there and stare at the pictures and cry and I can't get past the first page. I don't want to put anything up there that doesn't make him seem as wonderful as he really was. I don't want to understate him. But I don't want to be all gushy and mushy. But it's almost therapeutic for me to do it."
When people log onto www.genevancejr.com, they'll see a small photo of Gene Vance, a few paragraphs of information and a patriotic background.
The guest book is also accessible.
"I just want to put something out there in the world," Lisa Vance said. "I'll never forget him, but I want to make sure the rest of the world doesn't either.
The Dominion Post
Morgantown's Staff Sgt. Gene Vance Jr. will be featured on ABC's "Profiles From the Front Line" at 8 p.m. Thursday.
It will be the second of a six-episode series featuring footage of U.S. Special Forces soldiers and their personal stories.
Lisa Vance, widow of Gene Vance, said that an ABC camera crew was in Germany when Vance's body was shipped to Ramstein Air Base after his death in May 2002.
Gene Vance, a member of the 2nd Battalion, 19th Special Forces Unit of the West Virginia National Guard, was fatally shot during a reconnaissance mission in eastern Afghanistan.
The crew followed up on the soldier's story by interviewing Lisa Vance at her home last summer.
"No greater love is this, than a man should lay down his life for his freinds."
You and I have met, and I was there when Lisa and Gene first met, I was friends with them both, and I was there with everyone at the funeral. Don't be concerned with the "bread winner" comment, Lisa is a very proud woman as was your father. They made an amazing couple, and Lisa loved Gene in a way most folks will never know.
I will never understand the irony of how after so many years of searching, a lonely soul can finally find their needle in a haystack, only to have it taken away from them so quickly. As my father always told me, life is not fair.
Don Parks
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