Those who knew Army Sgt. Charles E. Matheny IV remember his big, easy laugh.
Kevin Nortz / The Herald
Maybe, conversely, that’s why his loss was so painfully felt at his funeral Monday.
As Brig. Gen. Oscar Hilman of Fort Lewis presented Matheny’s father, Charles Matheny III of Arlington, and mother, Dedi Noble of Camano Island, various awards, including the Purple Heart, Noble wept silently.
The first of three loud seven-rifle volleys in the 21-gun salute stirred her emotions outward in a loud, sobbing wail. Soon, six Army pallbearers folded the flag on her son’s casket while a bugler played taps.
Even the sky started to cry. The increasing drizzle sang the chorus behind the bugle’s harsh finality.
Matheny, 23, was killed by a roadside bomb Feb. 18 in Baghdad, Iraq.
Earlier, at the funeral home service in Auburn, his father took a moment to speak to his son one last time.
“Charlie, no one’s ever going to miss you more than I do,” he said. “I really do pray that we’ll be able to meet again. I don’t know how that works, but I’ve got my fingers crossed. Rest in peace, Charlie. I love you.”
Matheny was buried in Tahoma National Cemetery in Covington, near Kent, in honor of his duty in the war in Iraq and the four generations of military service in his family.
The show of emotions was appropriate, not just for the occasion, but also because of the man Charlie Matheny grew to be.
At the memorial service at Price-Helton Funeral Home, Matheny’s uncle, Tom Flynn, described the quick friendship he made with his new nephew when Flynn married into the family.
“What made me like Charlie so much was how transparent he was,” Flynn said.
Quick with a joke, a laugh and a hug for those he loved, even his pets, Matheny also never held back expressing sorrow, Flynn said.
“Charlie loved his grandma,” Flynn said. “When it came time to leave his grandma, he would weep, and he would weep openly.”
Speaking for the Noble family, Duane Goehner inspired knowing laughter with one story.
“His Army buddies used to tease him about how hard he must have been on his mother because of his large head,” Goehner said.
His mother agreed, Goehner said. When Matheny was born, she said his father told her, “Dedi, he looks like a frog.”
The nickname “Frog Baby” stuck with him his entire life, Goehner said, and Matheny’s face would break into a wide grin when his mother would call him that.
His mother told Goehner that Matheny was the most affectionate child she had ever seen.
Matheny was the 2,273rd U.S. service member killed since the war in Iraq started in March 2003. The class of 2000 Arlington High School graduate was the sixth resident from Snohomish County to diein the war.
The first, Army paratrooper Spc. Justin Hebert, from Silvana, was an Arlington schoolmate of Matheny’s.
At the memorial, a poem written by Matheny’s best friend, Sgt. Heath “Tiger” Ward, was read:
“It seems a dream that you have vanished,/ never to come back again./ For you, Charlie, my thoughts are filled with/ memories and my heart is edged in black.”
At the cemetery, Hilman presented one triangular-folded U.S. flag to each parent.
“This flag is presented on behalf of our grateful nation, the United States of America … in appreciation of his service,” Hilman said of their son.
A lone bagpiper from the Tacoma Fire Department played one stanza of “Amazing Grace.” On the second pass, she was joined in unison by another bagpiper. They slowed near the end, resolving with a bittersweet harmony.
And the sky cried a little harder.
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@ heraldnet.com.
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