The things we complain, bicker, and fight about on this forum......and then you read this:
Local News: Belvidere
[font=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Geneva, Helvetica]Mournful return home for fallen U.S. Marine[/font]
[font=Times New Roman, Times, serif]
Funeral held in his high school gym[/font]
By MIKE WISER, Rockford Register Star
>> Click here for more about Mike
BELVIDERE -- From the street, the crowd looked like any other that might be at a high school on a November night.
Perhaps there to see a Thanksgiving production by the theater kids, or to partake in a Thursday night pep rally to kick off the basketball season.
But this wasn't a rambunctious group, jumping and cheering on the way to the gymnasium. It wasn't a theater crowd either, too big a group, not enough people clutching cameras and video recorders.
These people entered the school quietly and took their place at the end of a line that stretched from the gymnasium at the far north end of the building past the main entrance in the middle. They were here to cry, pray and comfort one another.
Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Branden Ramey returned to his alma mater Thursday night, a casualty of war.
Ramey's family -- his father, Randy, lives in California; his mother, Pamela Trevino, lives in Belvidere -- conducted his visitation and funeral in the high school gymnasium.
It was a practical choice, simply because few places could hold the hundreds upon hundreds of people who felt compelled to honor Ramey, a 2001 Belvidere High School graduate and U.S. Marine machine-gunner who was killed in the assault on Fallujah on Nov. 8.
Practicality aside, it was the appropriate choice for a young man for whom Belvidere High School played such a big part in his short life.
It was there that Branden Ramey earned recognition as a standout athlete who dominated the playing fields -- football, basketball, baseball and wrestling.
It was there that something clicked in his head and Branden Ramey discovered a passion for what civilization was, what it could be, and he made up his mind to be a history teacher when he finished his military obligations.
It was at Belvidere High School that Branden Ramey fell in love with 18-year-old Stacey Lee, the girl he proposed to over the phone from Iraq. She accepted. Branden Ramey was killed a week later.
As people filed into the gymnasium Thursday night, Randy Ramey walked past a Marine stationed next to his son's coffin, which was covered by a U.S. flag, to give a short statement to some of those assembled.
"On behalf of both the Ramey and Trevino families, we wish to thank the countless individuals, businesses and organizations that have shown their generosity, compassion, kindness and, most importantly, prayers in our time of need," he said.
"My son left a legacy with everyone he met. ... He had a magnetic personality, his charisma just attracted people to him."
In the lobby outside the gymnasium where photos of Ramey were arranged on several folding tables framed by floral displays, teenagers hugged their parents, unashamed of the public show of affection or of the tears that ran down their faces.
Outside the lobby, down the hall through the double doors to the school, a constant rain fell as if the sky was crying for the son lost in a faraway place but who was now back home.
Local News: Belvidere
[font=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Geneva, Helvetica]Mournful return home for fallen U.S. Marine[/font]
[font=Times New Roman, Times, serif]
By MIKE WISER, Rockford Register Star
>> Click here for more about Mike
BELVIDERE -- From the street, the crowd looked like any other that might be at a high school on a November night.
Perhaps there to see a Thanksgiving production by the theater kids, or to partake in a Thursday night pep rally to kick off the basketball season.
But this wasn't a rambunctious group, jumping and cheering on the way to the gymnasium. It wasn't a theater crowd either, too big a group, not enough people clutching cameras and video recorders.
These people entered the school quietly and took their place at the end of a line that stretched from the gymnasium at the far north end of the building past the main entrance in the middle. They were here to cry, pray and comfort one another.
Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Branden Ramey returned to his alma mater Thursday night, a casualty of war.
Ramey's family -- his father, Randy, lives in California; his mother, Pamela Trevino, lives in Belvidere -- conducted his visitation and funeral in the high school gymnasium.
It was a practical choice, simply because few places could hold the hundreds upon hundreds of people who felt compelled to honor Ramey, a 2001 Belvidere High School graduate and U.S. Marine machine-gunner who was killed in the assault on Fallujah on Nov. 8.
Practicality aside, it was the appropriate choice for a young man for whom Belvidere High School played such a big part in his short life.
It was there that Branden Ramey earned recognition as a standout athlete who dominated the playing fields -- football, basketball, baseball and wrestling.
It was there that something clicked in his head and Branden Ramey discovered a passion for what civilization was, what it could be, and he made up his mind to be a history teacher when he finished his military obligations.
It was at Belvidere High School that Branden Ramey fell in love with 18-year-old Stacey Lee, the girl he proposed to over the phone from Iraq. She accepted. Branden Ramey was killed a week later.
As people filed into the gymnasium Thursday night, Randy Ramey walked past a Marine stationed next to his son's coffin, which was covered by a U.S. flag, to give a short statement to some of those assembled.
"On behalf of both the Ramey and Trevino families, we wish to thank the countless individuals, businesses and organizations that have shown their generosity, compassion, kindness and, most importantly, prayers in our time of need," he said.
"My son left a legacy with everyone he met. ... He had a magnetic personality, his charisma just attracted people to him."
In the lobby outside the gymnasium where photos of Ramey were arranged on several folding tables framed by floral displays, teenagers hugged their parents, unashamed of the public show of affection or of the tears that ran down their faces.
Outside the lobby, down the hall through the double doors to the school, a constant rain fell as if the sky was crying for the son lost in a faraway place but who was now back home.
