Note: This article was originally published on Nov. 9, 2004. We’re re-posting it now for our Colorado’s Fallen tribute.
Westminster – The photos flashed one after another onto the giant
projection screens, showing in elegant succession the growth of a
boy into a man.
In the first photos, Andrew Riedel was but a baby with a gurgling
smile and big, bright eyes.
Next came images of him sledding with his father as a little boy.
Then, he was sitting still in class pictures, dressed up at his brother’s wedding, goofing around with his friends as a teenager.
The sequence ended all too quickly – a reminder of how tragically
little time had passed. In the final frame, Riedel had grown to 6
1/2 feet tall, standing formally in a United States Marines dress
uniform, looking purposefully into the camera.
He was 19 years old.
Perhaps what best told the story of Riedel’s life, though, weren’t
the pictures but the hundreds of people who saw them Monday. Nearly
700 people packed Westminster Church of the Nazarene for the fallen
Marine’s memorial service.
“He touched every person he came in contact with in his life,”
Riedel’s sister Dannette Crawford said. “And through this tragedy,
he has been able to touch people he had never met.”
Riedel died Oct. 30 when a bomb blew up beside his convoy near
Fallujah in Iraq. He had been in the Marines for little more than a
year, in Iraq for about a month. He is one of 1,134 soldiers to
have died fighting in Iraq. At least 60 of those had ties to
Colorado.
“We see in Lance Cpl. Andrew Riedel the best of America,” Gov.
Bill Owens said in a eulogy. “He chose the highest calling of a
citizen in our democracy. He took upon himself the responsibility
to protect those rights we hold so dear. America needs and the
world needs more Andrew Riedels.”
Crawford remembered walking Riedel to the park when he was little
and thinking she had to protect her little brother. Then she
recalled the moment when he joined the Marines – the boy was now
the protector.
“I could never wish for a more thoughtful or loving friend,
brother or man to be a role model for my family,” she said. ” I
would be proud to have my boys follow in his footsteps, though they
are pretty big feet.”
Riedel’s friends talked about his compassion, and about the fun
that always seemed to follow him. His youngest sister remember the
joy the two had in getting into trouble as kids, by spray-painting
the dog blue or teasing their grandmother.
Riedel’s drill instructor read a poem about a Marine facing God,
and another sister read a letter Riedel sent his mother, talking
about how being in Iraq had made him more religious.
Riedel’s stepbrother, Russ Montanio, spoke admiringly of Riedel’s
decision to join the military and remembered how Riedel once said
he would like to become a Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy, like
Montanio.
“Little brother, you will always be a deputy in my heart,”
Montanio said. “Since you will never receive a deputy’s badge on
your own, you can have mine.”
Montanio then took off his badge and put it on the coffin, pressing
it lovingly onto the flag that draped the casket.
As the service drew to a close, the family’s pastor, Lonnie
Trujillo, spoke about Riedel’s service, in life and in faith.
The family then shuffled heavily to Riedel’s casket to say a long,
painful goodbye. A procession led by a dozen former Marines on
motorcycles led mourners to the cemetery in Brighton where Riedel
was buried with military honors.
But, in that moment just prior, Trujillo quoted Will Rogers.
“We can’t all be heroes,” Trujillo said, pausing to collect
himself, “because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they
go by.”
And with that, the audience of weeping family and loved ones, of
dearest friends and caring strangers, stood and applauded.
