Slain Marine laid to rest in Brighton

By Jim Sheeler, Rocky Mountain News
November 9, 2004

As the Marines folded the flag into a tight triangle, 10 women stood in the back of the cemetery, crying for a woman in the front row - the woman they never want to be.

"It's one of the most emotional, awesome things I've ever seen," said Marge Reich, of Northglenn, shortly after listening to Taps and the jarring rifle salute, after watching another mother receive the flag that had covered her 19-year-old son's casket.

"Watching her, what she is going through, that breaks my heart," Reich said. "What affects her, affects us all."

The women - most of whom have sons in Fallujah, Iraq, where a battle is raging - were hardly alone. Many of the hundreds of people who came to say goodbye to Lance Cpl. Andrew Riedel had never met him. Some of those strangers still called him "brother."

"I didn't know much about him," said Gunnery Sgt. DeAngelo Robinson, who escorted Riedel's body to Colorado once it arrived in the United States from Iraq, and whose duty finally ended at the cemetery.

"All I needed to know was that he was a Marine."

Riedel was killed along with seven other Marines from the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, on Oct. 30, when a car bomb exploded near a convoy in Al Anbar province.

Monday morning, inside Westminster Church of the Nazarene, more than 500 seats were filled 30 minutes before the service, packed with teenagers in blue jeans who sat alongside Marines in crisp dress blues. Some of the mourners wiped their faces with tissues; others dabbed their eyes with white gloves.

During the service, Riedel was remembered as a lanky, fun-loving teenager who was often the center of the party. The 2003 Northglenn High graduate was also remembered as a man Gov. Bill Owens called "a hero of Colorado."

"I don't want people to forget that you didn't have to go. You wanted to. You once said that the events of 9/11 had a profound effect on you. You wanted to protect your friends, your family . . . your country," said Russ Montanio, Riedel's stepbrother.

Montanio, who is with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, remembered that Riedel had also mentioned that he might want to work as a police officer one day. Then Montanio moved toward the casket.

"Little brother, you always said you wanted to be a deputy," he said, crying. "Since you never received a badge yourself, you can have mine."

Montanio then pinned the badge onto the flag draped over the casket, leaving his brother with 51 stars.

At the end of the service, Pastor Lonnie Trujillo left the crowd with a quote from Will Rogers.

"We all can't be heroes, because we need someone to sit on the curb and clap as they go by," Trujillo said. "Andrew, we clap for you."

With that, the crowd gave Riedel a standing ovation.

After the funeral in Brighton Cemetery, the 10 Marine moms hugged each other, and then turned to the other strangers with tears in their eyes: a few of the active-duty Marines in the military honor guard.

"We can't hug our own sons," Reich said. "We can hug them instead."

They then looked over at Riedel's mother, as she embraced more of the men in dress blues.

"The only thing I can say is that, as a Marine mom, I can assure her one thing," Linda Mitchell said.

"He will never be forgotten."

Copyright 2004, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.