Longmont – In the cold outside the Ahlberg Funeral Chapel, Kimberly Rold clicked a lighter, giving flame to a candle.
Standing among a crowd of people, some holding flags and others clutching tissues, Rold shivered but stared straight ahead as a group of six young Marines walked stiffly and formally to the back of a black hearse.
As the Marines carefully pulled Navy hospitalman Christopher Anderson’s flag-draped casket from the hearse, tears welled in Rold’s eyes, even as wax dripped down her candle.
Anderson was a friend from high school, and Rold, like dozens of others, came to the funeral home Tuesday night to see him home.
“It was just an honor to have been a part of his life for a little while,” she said. “He was a really good person.”
Anderson, 24, was killed Dec. 4 while serving as a medic in a Marine unit in western Iraq.
He was a 2000 graduate of Longmont High School. Following in his father’s footsteps, he joined the Navy in 2005, requesting combat medic training and asking for an assignment on the front line.
“He volunteered to do this,” Rick Anderson, Chris’ father, said Tuesday.
Teacher Dave Johnson, who had Anderson in two math classes at Longmont High, said he was a sharp student.
Last year, Anderson returned one day to Longmont High School in his Navy uniform. Johnson said he sensed Anderson wanted people to see the person he’d become.
“I was proud of him,” Johnson said. “He was alive. He was caring. He was enjoying what he did.”
Rold said Anderson had an infectiously silly smile. One time, they had gone with friends to a coffee shop for lunch, and Anderson accidently dumped his drink all over himself.
“We laughed for days about it,” she said. “I don’t even know what was so funny about it. Just the way he was about it, I guess. Just the way he related to people.”
Anderson’s body arrived home in Colorado on United Flight 271. His family met the flight on the tarmac, and his casket was loaded into the hearse.
On an access road leading out of the airport, 29 Patriot Guard riders stood holding American flags as the hearse passed.
The procession stopped briefly for Rick Anderson to thank those assembled.
“It just means so much to us that all of you are here,” Anderson said.
The procession made its way up Interstate 25 and then weaved through Longmont toward the funeral home. Along the procession route, Longmont residents stood by the roadside, holding flags and paying a silent tribute.
At the funeral home, more Patriot Guard riders and dozens of others met the procession as it arrived.
“I don’t know him or his family,” said Judy Roberts, who was standing with three friends along the procession route. “None of us do. But we just wanted to support his family.”
Anderson’s funeral is scheduled for Saturday. He will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
