She's a Marine Corps mom, so she had company. After seven years in Iraq and almost nine in Afghanistan, returning military personnel still draw a crowd. There are balloons, kisses, wet tissues and full-minute hugs. People stop to watch, and they feel good about it: A soldier traveling alone is usually going home for two weeks.
Not this time.
Silleck's boy, Lance Cpl. Kevin M. Cornelius, was a radio operator and a rifleman for the 3rd Platoon, C`1ompany C, of the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Marines. He was in the Helmand province in southwest Afghanistan when an enemy prisoner escaped and shot him in the head on Aug. 7.
Cornelius, 20, died a short time later.
Soon after, the command staff at the Headquarters Battalion of the 4th Marine Division's Erie truck company drove to Ashtabula, Ohio, where Cornelius, a high-school wrestler, had served as an acolyte at Bethany Lutheran Church. His funeral will be held there Monday.
Two men went to the home of his father, Gerald Cornelius. Two more -- 1st Sgt. Scott Hesson and Capt. Jamey Foster -- went to his mother's. They approached both homes at the same moment.
The logistics already had been considered. Cornelius' body would be brought to Dover Air Force Base, which is home to the U.S. military's only port mortuary. It would be X-rayed, to protect the base staff from unexploded ordnance, and would then be prepared for burial.
On Monday, just before midnight, Foster stood with Silleck as her son's body arrived at the base. He joined her again Saturday, when a charter plane brought the flag-draped casket to Erie International Airport.
"It's always very difficult, and trying," Foster said of the assignment. "But there is also a lot of pride and honor in this. Because he would have done the same for us."
The pilots of the Kalitta Charters jet cut the engines at 12:33 p.m. A large crowd had gathered: More than 40 friends and family members stood near the hearse, which was loaded with flowers. Across from them, away from the plane, more than 150 motorcycle riders, many of them veterans, waited to pay their respects. Several had hung American flags from the backs of their bikes.
It was quiet. With no wind, the flag pinned to the fire truck's aerial arm hung limp.
The funeral director stepped forward. A Marine escort appeared at the plane's open door. That, too, is tradition: At no time between his arrival at Dover and his funeral on Monday will Cornelius' body be left unattended.
The steel casket was pushed onto a scissors lift. Seven Marines from the Erie truck company lifted it and moved toward the hearse. It took them 12 steps.
And then it was over: The state troopers got back in their cruisers. The bikers lined up.
Mick Lipscomb had led 100 riders from Cleveland.
His group, the Leathernecks Nation Motorcycle Club, has the name of every local Marine who dies in active duty stitched onto an American flag. Cornelius' will be taken to Lakeside High School, where calling hours will be held from 2 until 7 p.m. today. Every Marine that attends will be asked to sign it.
"It's something Marines do," said Lipscomb, who served from 1972 to 1976. "We carry on the tradition of brotherhood. That's what the Marine Corps is all about."
In line behind him, with a patch on his vest that read, "Die first, then quit," Tim DeWolf lifted his kickstand. He said he was glad to be there.
"Every time I go through a carwash, I see dozens of those 'support the war' stickers lying on the ground," said DeWolf, a Cochranton native who now lives near Cleveland. "The thing is, if you really do support the troops, you stand up when they need you. And that's now."
The bikes roared. Another plane landed.
"Kevin gave his life for people he didn't even know," DeWolf said. "What else can he do for 15 minutes of your time?"
And with that he was gone, on to West Lake Road, and into Ohio, making sure that, if only for a moment, someone noticed.
No comments:
Post a Comment