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thedrifter
09-12-06, 08:33 AM
Published: September 12, 2006
Local News: Ogle County
Byron marks a place for ‘General,’ others
A statue honors fallen Marine Andrew Patten.

By Sadie Gurman
ROCKFORD REGISTER STAR

BYRON — They called him General.

Not because he was stern or bossy; he was quite the opposite, his friends say.

But Lance Cpl. Andrew Patten was focused, just like his World War II nickname-sake Gen. George S. Patton. Plus, when you’re in the military with a name like Patten, the moniker sticks, said Joseph Grady, a close friend of Patten’s from the military.

“He was so driven,” said Grady, who, along with Patten’s friends and family, paid tribute the 19-year-old fallen Marine on Monday, at the unveiling of a monument in his honor at the Byron Cemetery. “He just did what he wanted, and what he wanted, he did.”

Dozens of people, many of whom did not know Patten, spilled from tents at the cemetery, where they huddled to stay dry. Some came to give a sweeping thanks to the soldiers who have fought and died since Sept. 11, 2001, a day Patten’s mother said lingered in her son’s mind when he joined the Marines in August 2004.

Others came for one final farewell.

Patten died in Fallujah, Iraq, on Dec. 1, when a land mine exploded in an abandoned flour mill where the Marines were meeting. Patten and nine other members of his unit died. But Grady, wounded badly in the explosion, survived to tell the story of his buddy from Byron, who somehow managed to make the nonstop intensity of fighting in Iraq seem a little lighter, he said.

“Iraq’s not the most fun situation, but we always seemed to have fun somehow,” said Grady, 20, of Oconomowoc, Wis.

Patten’s memory will be preserved in “The Fallen Soldier” representing the “soldier’s cross,” a helmet on top of an inverted gun stuck into to boots. The “soldier’s cross” is set up in the field to memorialize a fallen soldier.

“In my mind, it was Andy,” his mother Gayle Naschansky told the hushed crowd. “The boots, the gun and the helmet — everyday working attire for an infantryman.”

The statue will sit near the war memorial, where Patten and his Boy Scout troop would walk every year to commemorate soldiers on Memorial Day, Naschansky said.

“Now Andy will be a part of that forever,” she said.

Patten and Grady quickly became friends after they discovered they’d gone to the same boot camp. They bonded over their similarities, from Christian rock music to their shared love of the guitar.

When Grady learned the news of his close friend’s death as he recuperated in the hospital, he vowed to do something Patten planned but never lived out. He got a tattoo — four stars on his forearm, like a general. Like Gen. Patton.

No one would have pegged a “nice guy” like Patten the tattoo type, Grady said. It would have shocked his friends, he said.

Patten was brave like that, his sister, Allison said.

“When Andy first joined the Marines, my heart sank,” Allison said. “But Andy assured me that this was what God called him to do, and who was I to argue with the will of God?”

As Americans mark the anniversary of Sept. 11 with vigils and memorial services, Grady said Patten’s statue gives all residents a place to praise the fallen, even those they’ve never met.

And if Patten could see it, Grady said, he’d be thankful, too.

Staff writer Sadie Gurman can be reached at 815-987-1389 or sgurman@rrstar.com.

Ellie