For as long as his family can remember, Chad Bryant Maynard wanted to be a Marine. When he decided he was old enough to enlist, he kept going to the local Marine recruitment center, asking to join until a recruiter finally begged his mother for help.
“They told her he couldn’t talk to them yet because he was too young. Something deep within him wanted to be in the Marine Corps. His dad was a Marine, and Jacob, his older brother, went into the Marines. …
“When we laid Chad to rest, we made Chad a promise that we would come and visit him every June 15. We had our first-anniversary gathering last year. We gathered around him in a circle, around the grave.
“We miss him but we are so proud of him. He was doing what he wanted to do, and it was just his desire to be in the military, to be there for what it meant to him.”
– Virginia Knowles, grandmother
