Motorcycle group attends funeral for fallen Marine

[thedrifter]

Motorcycle group attends funeral for fallen Marine

MONCKS CORNER, S.C. - Family and friends said goodbye to a fallen Marine while about 200 motorcycle riders watched, prepared to protect them from potential protesters.

No one turned up to make trouble as relatives of Sgt. John Paul Phillips buried the 29-year-old bomb disposal technician who died Aug. 16 in a Texas hospital from injuries sustained in March when a roadside bomb hit his vehicle near Fallujah, Iraq.

Phillips was given full military honors with dozens of uniformed men alongside hundreds of others to pay respects to their comrade.

Mike Crowley, a member of the Patriot Guard Riders who came 1,100 miles from Texas, stood alongside the family.

Crowley had met Phillips just months before on one of Crowley's regular visits to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio to talk with injured soldiers. He goes from room to room, listening to horror stories, offering encouragement.

"When I first met John, my God, he was just in bad shape," Crowley said. "There was just something about John that hit me. He was a good man."

Leah Phillips said her nephew was killed during his second tour of service. He had spent four years stationed in Japan before coming home to help the family care for an ailing brother.

He returned to the Marines in January 2005. Once he completed his training as a bomb disposal technician, he deployed to Iraq, where he was wounded. He suffered third-degree burns over most of his body and spent the past five months enduring the pain of his injuries and treatments.

Infection set in and his legs were amputated before he died. He was well enough, however, during his hospital stay to marry his girlfriend, Stephanie Neart.

Crowley drove the 1,100 miles on his motorcycle to participate in the Patriot Guard Riders, which was formed as a shield between grieving families and a group that protests at soldiers' funerals, claiming that God is punishing the United States for permitting homosexuality. The Kansas-based group had announced its intention to picket Phillips' funeral.

Information from: The Post and Courier, www.charleston.net

A service of the Associated Press(AP)

Ellie

[thedrifter]

A ride to remember
Family, strangers bond at biker event for hero's son
BY MEREDITH BONNY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Monday, August 28, 2006

PITTSBURGH Sgt. Sean H. Miles wasn't a quitter.

Neither is his mother.

Bleeding and badly bruised, Debbie Miles got back on the motorcycle she was riding yesterday and finished what she had started in her son's name.

"My son took a bullet. This is nothing," she said, despite the obvious road rash on her face and injured leg and hand.

Miles and her husband, Michael, who live in Chesterfield County, had traveled to the Pittsburgh area to participate in a Fallen Marine Memorial Run in honor of their son, Sean Miles.

Miles, 28 and a graduate of Clover Hill High School, was killed in Iraq seven months ago. He died pulling another Marine to safety. He left behind a wife, Genevieve, and a 3-year-old son, Tyler.

Two Marines from Pittsburgh organized the weekend event, which raised at least $30,000 for Tyler and drew bikers from across the country, including Virginia.

More than 5,000 families attended a concert Saturday night as part of the event. And yesterday, hundreds rode their motorcycles in the rain out of respect for Sean.

The organizers didn't mince words about what inspired them to help the Miles family.

"It was the picture," said Jerry Vanasdale, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

He was talking about a photograph of Tyler, dressed in a miniature version of the Marine Corps dress blue uniform, pointing to his father's casket and saying, "Daddy."

The photo, taken Feb. 2 by Times-Dispatch photographer P. Kevin Morley, was published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

"Sean was the Marine I wanted to be," Vanasdale said.

But yesterday, after months of planning and excitement, horror struck. The Mileses' motorcycle crashed.

It was less than an hour into the run. The roads were slick with rain, and Michael and Debbie Miles were pulling off Highway 279 north of Pittsburgh when their recently purchased 2005 Yamaha skidded out.

Debbie hit the ground. Her helmeted head smacked the pavement, and her body bounced.

Friends and family who were following in a Hummer started screaming.

"It's Mike and Debbie," shrieked Genevieve Miles, Sean's widow.

"Oh my God, oh my God," cried Veronica Michleski, a Pittsburgh-area resident who was driving the Hummer.

Michael ran after his wife, who was walking and shaking her left hand.

He hugged her tight. They were both shaking.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Debbie kept repeating.

Her hand was bleeding badly.

It became a pivotal moment in the ride.

Joe Wadlow, co-organizer of the run, started talking about cutting it short. He got on his cell phone and began frantically making calls.

Michael, still visibly upset, asked his wife if she would be able to get back on the bike, knowing she wasn't one to give up easily.

"Am I a quitter?" she sobbed, tears rolling down her face. "I have someone inside me," she said.

When Sean Miles was growing up, his father would tell him never to quit.

"If he hadn't have done what he did over there, he would not have come back the same man," Michael said of his son's final act of bravery in Iraq. "It would have haunted him for the rest of his life."

Another Marine lived, but young Tyler will never get to see his father again.

Those who attended yesterday's run pledged to never let Tyler forget who his father was and what he stood for.

"I think about them every day," said Lloyd Smith, a retired Marine from San Francisco.

"I have a bond with Sean as if he was still alive, like we are friends who would go out and do things," Smith said. "Meeting this family and being here is one of the most gratifying things that has ever happened to me."

Many said it's hard to explain the emotions involved in the run and how hundreds of people who had never met Sean Miles came together to help his son.

The Mileses' story, which has been featured in The Times-Dispatch, touched families as far away as Montreal, as well as those who live a few doors down from Debbie and Michael Miles.

Clint Harrington of Chesterfield was one of them, and he rode his bike yesterday for Sean.

Harrington had never met the Mileses. His oldest son, also a Marine, went to high school with Sean. When he read about what happened in Iraq, Harrington stopped by the Mileses' home.

"You've got to support your brothers," he said.

Members of the Blue Knights Virginia Three from Richmond were in Pittsburgh as well, standing beside Michael Miles in solidarity. The Blue Knights are motorcyclists with ties to law enforcement.

"Later in life, Tyler will see pictures of this and know what all of the people did for him and his family," said Chris Jernigan, a Richmond police officer and Blue Knight who made the trek.

In the early afternoon before the run, members of the American Legion Riders Gold Star Post 820, of Monroeville southeast of Pittsburgh, presented the Miles family with a card, a donation and a stuffed tiger dressed in black chaps for Tyler.

Marguerite Holby, a member of the group, cried as she hugged Genevieve.

The women had never met, but they shared an obvious bond.

"It's a veteran thing," Holby said. "God bless them."

Contact staff writer Meredith Bonny at mbonny@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6452.

Ellie