Note: This article was originally published on Nov. 15, 2004. We’re re-posting it now for our Colorado’s Fallen tribute.
Littleton – Green Mountain High School graduate Theodore Holder was a career Marine who met President Bush and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger before he was killed Thursday in Iraq.
“He was the ultimate Marine,” his sister Rebecca Holder-Otte said. “I just want everyone to know what a special person he was.
The world was much better with him in it.”
Holder-Otte said her brother, a Marine staff sergeant, had plans to marry. His fiancée will be traveling here from Prague, Czech
Republic, where Holder was stationed before the war.
Holder’s family has lived in the same home in Littleton since 1981, when Holder was 4. It’s where he and his sister used to wrestle;
she would win.
But Holder-Otte said her brother grew quickly. Soon after Holder finished high school, he told his family he wanted to be a Marine.
He died on Veterans Day.
“We were worried for him,” Holder-Otte remembered. “But it was something he wanted to do. He wanted to serve his country.”
His eight-year service took him all over the world, and he did three tours in the prestigious role of an embassy guard. In
addition to his encounters with Bush and Kissinger, he once guarded Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Eventually, duty called him to Iraq.
His assignment was not an enviable one: sweeping for roadside bombs in hostile territory. But his weekly calls back home were always
mundane.
“I think he said a lot of things to make my mom feel better,” Holder-Otte said. “He just said day-to-day stuff. He said a lot
that he was bored.”
He even managed to keep his dry sense of humor. For her birthday, Holder sent his sister a card that said, “It’s nice here in
Iraq.”
His final call 11 days ago was no different than the others. Holder told his mother that he loved her, that he was fine and not to
believe everything in the news.
Holder-Otte said finding out about her little brother’s death was “just like a movie.”
Two Marines pulled up in front of the house. They didn’t know many details: He was fighting in the Anbar province and was killed in
action Thursday.
Holder is at least the 61st soldier with Colorado connections to die in Iraq.
Holder-Otte fought through tears Sunday, but she described a man who lived a full life.
“He did so much in his 27 years,” she said. “He traveled the world, jumped from airplanes, fell in love – so many things.”
The whole thing is “surreal,” Holder-Otte said.
“I just feel like he is going to come home – like there was a
mistake,” she said.
Holder’s body arrived in Colorado on Sunday. The family is still
planning services.
