Those dying right now are remembered

By Helen O’neill

Associated Press

When Marc Anderson was born, the doctor told his parents the baby was so strong they should give him a strong name. So they borrowed from Roman times and named him Marc Anthony.

When Marc Anthony Anderson was killed in Afghanistan in March, the 30-year-old soldier from Brandon, Fla., left a legacy as daunting as his name.

Anderson, an elite Army Ranger, died with seven other soldiers during a nine-hour firefight while trying to rescue an injured Navy SEAL.

He left memories of his bravery: He was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star, Defense Meritorious Service Medal and Purple Heart. He left examples of his generosity: The former math teacher, who planned to return to teaching, had stipulated that part of his life insurance benefit go to pay college tuition for an exceptional student.

But most of all, Anderson left memories of his spirit — the strapping soldier who personified the Ranger code by dying while trying to help a fellow warrior.

At his funeral, he was eulogized as "a beautiful soul."

This Memorial Day, as flags fly at half-staff around the nation and military graves are adorned with flowers, many beautiful souls will be remembered — men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice, in past wars, in faraway lands.

But the freshest memories, and some of the most poignant, will be of those who have died most recently in Afghanistan.

In Morgantown, W.Va., they will remember Gene Vance Jr., the 38-year-old mountain biker who spoke Farsi and who kept his military life such a secret that even his closest friends didn’t know until after his death that he had received a Bronze Star in 1993.

"There were two Genes," said his best friend and biking buddy, Ed Evans. "And we lost both of them."

There was the newly married Vance, a perennial college student, who managed the Whitetail Cycle &Fitness bike store, loved the Grateful Dead, and was starting a new life in a small ranch house with his wife, Lisa.

And there was the military Vance, whose honeymoon was cut short last summer, and whose life was cut short this month. The special forces soldier died May 19 in a gunbattle in eastern Afghanistan.

In the small town of Cheshire in western Massachusetts, they will remember 32-year-old Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Petithory, the altar boy turned prankster, who donned Elvis glasses on parachute jumps and once wore a grass skirt on a canoe trip. He died in December when an American bomb, carrying 2,000 pounds of explosives, mistakenly landed about 100 yards from his position.

"He grew from a lanky boy to a man; from a wisecracking teen-ager to a soldier of boundless courage," his uncle Henry Petithory said at his nephew’s funeral. "From a humble small-town neighbor arose a hero for the nation."

The same might have been said of Petithory’s comrade, 39-year-old Master Sgt. Jefferson Davis, who died in the same accident.

In the tiny town of Watauga, Tenn., where Davis grew up, he was known simply as "Donnie." They named a bridge for Donnie in Watauga to immortalize the quiet Tennessean who loved fishing and motorcycling and his family.

"My father was a great man, and I love him and I’m proud of what he did," his 14-year-old daughter Christina wrote in an open letter that lay next to his flag-draped casket. "He died defending the U.S. He died defending you."

Her pride has been echoed by family members of fallen servicemen and women around the country.

"If you wanted somebody to go to war and represent you, my son was the perfect one," said Bob Bancroft of Redding, Calif. "He was tall and straight and proud. He was the perfect person to represent this country."

His son, Marine Capt. Matthew Bancroft, was so proud of his hometown of Burney, the father said, that he couldn’t resist "buzzing" by the remote Northern California area in a KC-130 refueling jet after he earned his pilot’s wings.

But perfect sons die, too.

In January, the military tanker Bancroft was flying crashed into a mountain in Pakistan, killing all seven Marines on board.

Sgt. Nathan Hays, 21, of Wilbur, Wash., also died in that crash. Among others who perished was Sgt. Jeannette Winters, the first female Marine ever to die in a combat zone.

In Gary, Ind., they will remember Winters this Memorial Day — the tough little sister who followed her brother into the Marines and died at the age of 25.

There were many dignitaries at her funeral, and many eloquent eulogies. Her commanders lauded her skills. The lieutenant governor called her "a great Marine, and an extraordinary daughter of Indiana."

But it was her brother, Marine Sgt. Matthew Winters, whose words were the most moving.

"I lost a fellow Marine," he said. "I lost my baby sister, but most of all, I lost my best friend."

That is how they will be remembered across America this Memorial Day: brothers, sisters, fathers, husbands, sweethearts, best friends.

Their legacy lives on — in the tributes of their nation, in the hearts of their loved ones, in the faces of their children.

And in their own words.

Before he left for Afghanistan, Neil Roberts wrote a letter to his wife, to be opened only if he didn’t return. In March, military cameras recorded the images of the 32-year-old Navy SEAL falling from a stricken helicopter and then reportedly being shot by al-Qaida fighters.

At his funeral, his wife released portions of his letter.

"I loved being a SEAL," Roberts wrote. "If I die doing something for the Teams, then I died doing what made me happy. Very few people have the luxury of that."