thedrifter
02-16-06, 06:41 AM
FUNERAL FOR FALLEN MARINE
Mourning a life cut short
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Jeb Phillips
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The speakers tried yesterday to remind the mourners that Marine Pfc. Jacob Spann had lived the fullest 21 years he could. They said his friends and family knew him as Jake, Jakey, or Jake the Snake. He first kissed his girlfriend, Abby, when they were 15 and it was raining. He once told a boy who picked up his younger sister, Sarah, "I am a Marine, and I could take you out from 150 yards without blinking an eye . . . Have a nice evening with my sister."
The boy brought Sarah home early.
Jacob played football, wrestled and ran track. He worked at an auto-body shop, which helped him express his artistic side.
He lived long enough to graduate from Westerville North High School in 2003 and decide that the military would help give him direction. He lived just long enough to be riding in a Humvee on Feb. 6 when a bomb detonated in western Iraq.
Still, no matter how many experiences he had, this was a funeral for a young man.
Some girls at the Grace Brethren Church in Westerville wore high-school letter jackets, and guys Jacob’s age fidgeted in suits they rarely wear. They eventually will learn to sit still in a jacket. Jacob won’t.
He will not meet his new nephew or niece, due before long. If the baby is a boy, his name will be Jacob.
So the speakers talked about that life, too, the one that Jacob will miss. His brother Chris read a letter from Abby Van Huffel, the love of Jacob’s life, who said she had expected to be writing her wedding vows, not a eulogy. She ended the letter, "I will always be here loving you."
Another brother, Joseph, the one with a baby on the way, said he dreamed that the child one day would grow up, look at a picture of the uncle he never knew and say that he was a hero.
His stepfather, Dennis Nealon, said Jacob had talked of becoming a drill instructor. The people who loved him most took comfort knowing that he was proud to be a Marine.
Marines escorted Jacob’s casket into the church, then carried it to the graveside at Kingwood Memorial Park in Lewis Center. Marines folded the flag covering his casket into a triangle and gave it to Deborah Nealon, Jacob’s mother. She was wearing a Mother’s Medal of Honor that her son had given her once when he was on leave.
Marines fired a rifle volley. Taps played.
As some of this was happening, people passed around red, white and blue balloons. That’s not in the Marine program, but it seemed an appropriate way to honor a guy with the biggest smile anyone had ever seen.
When the service was over, when the last prayer was prayed and everything was quiet, they let them go.
The mourners stood there as the balloons — the ones that stood for a Marine who lived 21 great years — drifted away.
jeb.phillips@dispatch.com
Rest In Peace
Ellie
Mourning a life cut short
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Jeb Phillips
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The speakers tried yesterday to remind the mourners that Marine Pfc. Jacob Spann had lived the fullest 21 years he could. They said his friends and family knew him as Jake, Jakey, or Jake the Snake. He first kissed his girlfriend, Abby, when they were 15 and it was raining. He once told a boy who picked up his younger sister, Sarah, "I am a Marine, and I could take you out from 150 yards without blinking an eye . . . Have a nice evening with my sister."
The boy brought Sarah home early.
Jacob played football, wrestled and ran track. He worked at an auto-body shop, which helped him express his artistic side.
He lived long enough to graduate from Westerville North High School in 2003 and decide that the military would help give him direction. He lived just long enough to be riding in a Humvee on Feb. 6 when a bomb detonated in western Iraq.
Still, no matter how many experiences he had, this was a funeral for a young man.
Some girls at the Grace Brethren Church in Westerville wore high-school letter jackets, and guys Jacob’s age fidgeted in suits they rarely wear. They eventually will learn to sit still in a jacket. Jacob won’t.
He will not meet his new nephew or niece, due before long. If the baby is a boy, his name will be Jacob.
So the speakers talked about that life, too, the one that Jacob will miss. His brother Chris read a letter from Abby Van Huffel, the love of Jacob’s life, who said she had expected to be writing her wedding vows, not a eulogy. She ended the letter, "I will always be here loving you."
Another brother, Joseph, the one with a baby on the way, said he dreamed that the child one day would grow up, look at a picture of the uncle he never knew and say that he was a hero.
His stepfather, Dennis Nealon, said Jacob had talked of becoming a drill instructor. The people who loved him most took comfort knowing that he was proud to be a Marine.
Marines escorted Jacob’s casket into the church, then carried it to the graveside at Kingwood Memorial Park in Lewis Center. Marines folded the flag covering his casket into a triangle and gave it to Deborah Nealon, Jacob’s mother. She was wearing a Mother’s Medal of Honor that her son had given her once when he was on leave.
Marines fired a rifle volley. Taps played.
As some of this was happening, people passed around red, white and blue balloons. That’s not in the Marine program, but it seemed an appropriate way to honor a guy with the biggest smile anyone had ever seen.
When the service was over, when the last prayer was prayed and everything was quiet, they let them go.
The mourners stood there as the balloons — the ones that stood for a Marine who lived 21 great years — drifted away.
jeb.phillips@dispatch.com
Rest In Peace
Ellie