thedrifter
05-13-06, 03:46 PM
A column by Rob Joesbury
‘A wonderful kid and a great man’
By Rob Joesbury
rjoesbury@news-sentinel.com
They say there are too few heroes anymore. This story has three.
Two of them would dismiss that notion, if you asked them. The other? He died Thursday in Iraq.
So first, let’s allow the other two to do David Grames-Sanchez’s talking for him.
“He was a wonderful kid and a great man,” said Sgt. Brian Burton, a 23-year veteran of the Fort Wayne Police Department who worked security at Elmhurst High School when Grames-Sanchez was a student there. “If my kids can grow up half as good as him, I’ll be happy.”
Maybe it wasn’t always that way. Enter Dave McKinnis, an Elmhurst physical education teacher who watched Grames-Sanchez grow in more ways than one in two years of strength-training classes. Those two years shaped Grames-Sanchez physically – and mentally – for the
challenges that lay ahead.
“David was a guy searching for something when I first knew him,” McKinnis said. “He didn’t know what he wanted to do.”
A teenager in search of direction found it after Burton and McKinnis helped point the way. That ended up being enlistment in the Marines and the two tours of duty in Iraq that came with it.
“You sort of feel responsible,” McKinnis said. “It’s tough. I talked to my priest. I talked to my wife who’s a counselor at South Side. … He made his own choice.”
Grames-Sanchez’s too-short life is a tough one to reconcile, if you think about it. Without the Marines, the David Grames-Sanchez that Burton and McKinnis heap praise upon, the one who stood up when a woman entered the room, the one Burton’s three kids consider their brother, the one who went back to Elmhurst in full uniform to visit his teachers between tours of duty, never would have existed.
What made him killed him.
“When David first told me he wanted to become a Marine I told him, ‘They’re going to eat you up and spit you up,’ ” Burton said. “I asked the recruiter, ‘What do you think of him? He needs the Marines more than the Marines need him.’ The recruiter said, ‘That’s good enough for me.’ ”
Actually, by that time the kid was well on his way to becoming a man. Nothing fazed him, not even the prospect of boot camp. He told Burton he’d make it out all right. And he did. The David Grames-Sanchez snatched away in Iraq was not the one Burton and McKinnis knew four years ago.
The Marines will do that to you. So will a couple of men like Burton and McKinnis.
“We’re in (positions) at the school; we’re like role models,” Burton said. “Once David became a Marine, he became a role model for me. Fort Wayne lost a potential great leader. David was not the kind to sit back and follow other people. It breaks my heart.”
McKinnis found out what happened from a student, about 7:50 a.m. Friday. “A student comes into my class and says, ‘Coach, that kid you talked about in class … Coach, he passed away.’ I couldn’t believe it. I had just e-mailed him, e-mailed his wife.”
His classes got to know Grames-Sanchez. They sent boxes of letters. They sent tennis balls. Grames-Sanchez wanted tennis balls because he would give them to Iraqi children – children who would keep him out of harm’s way, pointing him away from the land mines.
Burton remembers the devastation his children felt when they heard their “brother” had died a world away from home.
“My oldest called from college, crying her eyes out,” said Burton, fighting back tears himself. “My 13-year-old son put his head on his dinner plate, went up to bed and didn’t want to talk about it. My youngest daughter, 11, just went into a rage.
“He’s one of those kids that comes along once in a lifetime.”
And you can thank two men, at least in part, for that.
Rob Joesbury is an assistant Metro editor. You can call him at 461-8266. This is the personal opinion of the writer, not necessarily that of The News-Sentinel.
Ellie
‘A wonderful kid and a great man’
By Rob Joesbury
rjoesbury@news-sentinel.com
They say there are too few heroes anymore. This story has three.
Two of them would dismiss that notion, if you asked them. The other? He died Thursday in Iraq.
So first, let’s allow the other two to do David Grames-Sanchez’s talking for him.
“He was a wonderful kid and a great man,” said Sgt. Brian Burton, a 23-year veteran of the Fort Wayne Police Department who worked security at Elmhurst High School when Grames-Sanchez was a student there. “If my kids can grow up half as good as him, I’ll be happy.”
Maybe it wasn’t always that way. Enter Dave McKinnis, an Elmhurst physical education teacher who watched Grames-Sanchez grow in more ways than one in two years of strength-training classes. Those two years shaped Grames-Sanchez physically – and mentally – for the
challenges that lay ahead.
“David was a guy searching for something when I first knew him,” McKinnis said. “He didn’t know what he wanted to do.”
A teenager in search of direction found it after Burton and McKinnis helped point the way. That ended up being enlistment in the Marines and the two tours of duty in Iraq that came with it.
“You sort of feel responsible,” McKinnis said. “It’s tough. I talked to my priest. I talked to my wife who’s a counselor at South Side. … He made his own choice.”
Grames-Sanchez’s too-short life is a tough one to reconcile, if you think about it. Without the Marines, the David Grames-Sanchez that Burton and McKinnis heap praise upon, the one who stood up when a woman entered the room, the one Burton’s three kids consider their brother, the one who went back to Elmhurst in full uniform to visit his teachers between tours of duty, never would have existed.
What made him killed him.
“When David first told me he wanted to become a Marine I told him, ‘They’re going to eat you up and spit you up,’ ” Burton said. “I asked the recruiter, ‘What do you think of him? He needs the Marines more than the Marines need him.’ The recruiter said, ‘That’s good enough for me.’ ”
Actually, by that time the kid was well on his way to becoming a man. Nothing fazed him, not even the prospect of boot camp. He told Burton he’d make it out all right. And he did. The David Grames-Sanchez snatched away in Iraq was not the one Burton and McKinnis knew four years ago.
The Marines will do that to you. So will a couple of men like Burton and McKinnis.
“We’re in (positions) at the school; we’re like role models,” Burton said. “Once David became a Marine, he became a role model for me. Fort Wayne lost a potential great leader. David was not the kind to sit back and follow other people. It breaks my heart.”
McKinnis found out what happened from a student, about 7:50 a.m. Friday. “A student comes into my class and says, ‘Coach, that kid you talked about in class … Coach, he passed away.’ I couldn’t believe it. I had just e-mailed him, e-mailed his wife.”
His classes got to know Grames-Sanchez. They sent boxes of letters. They sent tennis balls. Grames-Sanchez wanted tennis balls because he would give them to Iraqi children – children who would keep him out of harm’s way, pointing him away from the land mines.
Burton remembers the devastation his children felt when they heard their “brother” had died a world away from home.
“My oldest called from college, crying her eyes out,” said Burton, fighting back tears himself. “My 13-year-old son put his head on his dinner plate, went up to bed and didn’t want to talk about it. My youngest daughter, 11, just went into a rage.
“He’s one of those kids that comes along once in a lifetime.”
And you can thank two men, at least in part, for that.
Rob Joesbury is an assistant Metro editor. You can call him at 461-8266. This is the personal opinion of the writer, not necessarily that of The News-Sentinel.
Ellie