Marine stories evoke joy, pain

VANCOUVER -- It was a day of contradictions. Smiles and tears. Lighthearted storytelling and a flag-draped coffin.

More than 200 friends, military comrades and family jammed into a Vancouver funeral home, then they braved a biting wind at Willamette National Cemetery on Sunday to honor Marine Staff Sgt. David G. Ries.

Ries, 29, died Nov. 8 when a bomb exploded near the Humvee in which he was riding as his convoy helped resupply forward units during the assault on Fallujah. The convoy was returning to base.

He also was honored Saturday night at a candlelight vigil at Westfield Shoppingtown Mall in Vancouver. Ries, who worked as a security officer at the mall until he went to Iraq, had campaigned for a flagpole at the mall. During the vigil, the mall dedicated a flagpole to Ries, and Marines raised the U.S. flag.

Amanda "Mandy" Ries told mourners who packed rooms and hallways at Evergreen Staples Funeral Home about her fun-loving husband. He was the father of a son, Bailey, 4, and daughter, Camryn, 2.

"He loved the Marine Corps, his family and then beer," she said.

She told a string of stories about his antics that had the crowd nodding, smiling and chuckling.

She remembered the time he and his buddies released pepper spray out a car window as an experiment, but the spray ended up blowing back in the car, disabling all of them.

He and a friend painted the hood of a car with a Nike symbol and took photographs to send to the manufacturer in hopes of getting free shoes.

Ries' mother, Jean, said her son was on his second war tour because "there was a job to do." He went on the resupply convoy "because he could not let his fellow Marines go while he was safe," she said. She also talked about his practical jokes and pranks.

One of his Marine buddies described how Ries wanted to go outside to see what it felt like to be picked up by a tornado when one hit the Army base they were visiting in the Midwest.

Mandy Ries said that despite a close relationship, "we mainly called each other by our last names. He was always 'Ries' until (daughter) Camryn came along, and then he became 'Daddy.' "

Then came the procession to Willamette National Cemetery. City, county and state police from both sides of the Columbia River blocked off Interstate 205 for a caravan that stretched about two miles. Officers and even highway workers stood beside the freeway.

At the cemetery, a pair of F-15 fighter planes flew slowly across the amphitheater atop Mount Scott while honor guards from the Marines and American Legion stood at attention.

The crowd stood quietly in the brisk breeze when the squad of Marines fired three volleys. The Portland Police Highland Guard pipe band played "Amazing Grace," the Marine Corps Hymn and "Auld Lang Syne."

At the funeral, one Marine friend summed up Staff Sgt. David Ries: He worked hard and played harder.