RICHMOND, Ky. — Matt Rawlings’ grim task in Iraq was to retrieve battered soldiers’ bodies from battlefields and load flag-draped coffins on planes for the trip home. The ex-Marine’s time with the military mortuary unit showed him the ultimate sacrifice of so many of his comrades and made him more than willing to volunteer for a stateside memorial recalling the fallen.
Rawlings is a senior at Eastern Kentucky University, where an idea was born to read the names of the more than 6,000 Americans killed in the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’ll lend his voice along with other students, faculty and staff and relatives of veterans who will spend hours on Veterans Day reading the roll call at Eastern Kentucky and 181 other college campuses across the country. In Colorado, Colorado Sate University, Regis University and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs will participate.
Among the names the former corporal plans to read is that of Marine Master Sgt. Brett Angus, a friend from his days in Iraq. Angus was killed by a roadside bomb in late November 2005. Earlier that week, Rawlings had celebrated Thanksgiving with Angus and other comrades.
“This Remembrance Day hits close to home,” said Rawlings, 29, a six-year Marine who served in Iraq for parts of 2005 and 2006 and hopes to land a security job after graduation. “To me, it signifies that they have not been forgotten.”
