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thedrifter
01-11-07, 07:23 AM
'Doc Andy's' family finds solace in sifting through hero's life

By Jim Sheeler, Rocky Mountain News
January 11, 2007

LONGMONT - Everyone in the living room could relate to the first sentence scrawled in "Doc" Anderson's journal.

"Sept. 6, 2006. The **** gets more and more real every minute," Rick Anderson read, his voice shaking as he held the leather-bound diary.

He looked up at his family, and the heavy plastic boxes that had just arrived from Iraq, and forced himself to continue.

"Everybody's packed, weapons are drawn - and waiting for the bus. I make my last calls on U.S. soil."

Rick Anderson stopped and hung his head. "I can't read this," he said. "I can listen to it, but I can't read it."

The former Navy SEAL walked over to one of the tissue boxes the family has stashed in every room as his son Kyle continued to read.

"We get the call to board the plane. As I walk down the runway I call my mom and dad and tell them I love them and heard the plane. I am nervous - even threw up at one point. Every emotion is flowing."

"Doc" Anderson's journal doesn't last very long - only a few pages. At the same time, the Andersons say, it lasts long enough.

"I have the best Marines a Doc could ask for. Many are 19-20 and married. I am already missing home but I have a new family."

Nearby, two sailors from Buckley Air Force Base stood near the boxes they had just hefted into the home: Navy Hospital Corpsman Christopher "Doc" Anderson's last possessions, and his final words.

Wednesday morning, two weeks after they buried their 24-year-old son at Arlington National Cemetery, the family gathered around the first of the boxes and opened the lid.

Inside, everything was inventoried and sealed in zip-locked bags. A bar of soap. A toothbrush. An iPod and dozens of CDs. A package of Charmin To Go. A headlamp and four pairs of sunglasses. A pillow with the faded name, "Doc Anderson."

"This is his Iraq pillow," his mother said, squeezing it. "It isn't very comfortable."

They continued to dig and found a copy of Flags of Our Fathers and several comic books. They found crayon drawings from kids in the neighborhood, two Bibles with camouflage covers and a miniature version of the Quran.

"There's probably a great story that goes along with that," Rick Anderson said, as he slipped the holy book back into the case and laid it near the Bibles.

In one bag, Kyle Anderson found a Zippo lighter, emblazoned with the logo for Operation Iraqi Freedom. On the other side, his brother had scratched, "Doc Andy."

"This is the last part of my brother coming through this house," he said a few minutes later, then managed a smile. "The last time all his crap will be scattered across the floor."

He held his brother's weatherbeaten camouflage cap in his hand.

"It's weird because I don't want any of it. I'm totally happy to have it, but I wish I didn't," he said. "I wish I didn't have to have it."

Inside a box, someone found a digital camera, and the family beamed. They gathered around the tiny screen, reliving the last few months of Christopher Anderson's life.

They found photos of him goofing off with "his" Marines, giving candy to Iraqi children, playing baseball. They also saw him in full combat gear, holding his rifle in an occupied Iraqi home.

As she surveyed the remains of her son's life, Debra Anderson shook her head.

"Christopher was supposed to come home on the bus. This stuff was supposed to come with him on the bus," she said. "It's just a hard concept. In my head, I can't grasp that he's not coming home.

"Looking at his casket was hard, but this is like, this is it," she said.

"This is all we have left."

Geneva card draws tears

At the kitchen table, Rick Anderson picked up a single piece of paper.

REPORT OF CASUALTY, it read.

"This serves as the military death certificate," said Chief Hospital Corpsman Kip Poggemeyer, as he helped the family navigate their way through piles of paperwork.

A month ago, it was Poggemeyer who rang the Anderson's doorbell on Frontier Street, starting the process that never seems to end.

Wednesday, Rick Anderson said, was "the last major hump before we start down the path."

Under "Cause of Death," the report reads "Hostile action; combat injuries in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Anderson was killed in a mortar attack near Ramadi on Dec. 4.

Inside the package, they found more of their son's medals and two gold pins that were nearly as important.

"These are gold star pins," Rick Anderson said, as he read the history of the symbol that, for nearly 100 years, represents a family member killed in action. Alongside, he found documents authorizing Rick and Debra to wear the pins.

At the table, they unwrapped black velvet sacks containing the items their son had with him when he died. A Leatherman tool. A sheet with directions for inserting a catheter, and everything from his wallet.

Among the phone cards, credit cards and driver's license, they found a card with his photo alongside two red crosses.

"That's his Geneva Conventions card," Poggemeyer said. "For medical personnel, it shows that you're noncombative, so if you get taken captive or hostage, they can't force you to pick up a weapon. They can only have you perform your medical job.

"But Iraq doesn't really follow the Geneva Conventions."

The family slowly placed the items back inside the velvet sacks and placed them over the death certificate of the man whose only purpose in Iraq was to save lives.

"It's weird the things that affect you," Rick Anderson said as he wiped his eyes. "I can't think of his Geneva Conventions card without crying."

Tributes from Doc's Marines

In early December, a group of Marines from Alpha Company gathered in a room draped with camouflage netting in Iraq, near two "field crosses" - sets of empty boots split by a rifle and topped with a combat helmet, the symbol of a fallen service member.

One Marine approached a makeshift podium and began to speak. The memorial service was captured by video camera and sent to the Anderson family. Tuesday morning, Rick Anderson played it on his computer.

"Men, we gather this evening to honor the service, commitment and friendship we've all come to know and share with our fallen brothers here tonight. Lance Corporal Thomas Echols and HN Christopher Anderson," the unidentified Marine said.

Echols, a 20-year-old Marine from Kentucky, was killed in the same battle on Dec. 4 that claimed Anderson's life. As a corpsman, Anderson volunteered to be on the front lines with the Marines, and died alongside them.

"I say brothers because they are brothers," the Marine continued. "They're brothers based on the same hardships that create a very special bond between Marines and sailors. Quite honestly, like no other I've come to know. I don't think you can really understand that bond, that brotherhood, unless you're standing here with us. Unless you're facing the same hardships, the same dangers, day in and day out."

At the end of the tape, the members of Doc's squad gathered to send a message directly to his family.

"Mr. And Mrs. Anderson . . . he was a brother to all of us, loved by us all," one said.

"He saved my best friend's life," said another.

"I want you to know that your son was awesome, and every day we went on patrol, we had his back, and we still do," said another.

"He was my best friend out here. He was my combat buddy," said another. "I think about him every day when I get up, and as I get ready to leave that wire he's with me.

"My prayers go out to you, his family, and I want you to know that his family here misses him more than anything in the world. We miss him, we love him and welcome to our family."

As the men voice their concern for the family, Rick Anderson said he can't help but voice his concern for them.

"I'm thinking this guy had to regroup, grab his weapon and go back at it," he said, after watching the DVD. "When I think I'm having a bad day, I think about the guys who had to go back out there. The young men with my son had to go right back to work."

"We get to come home and cry," Debra Anderson said. "They have to go back to work."

On the DVD, at the end of the funeral service, each man walked to the field crosses.

As they walked past, each man saluted.

The last Marines in line kissed their Doc's empty helmet.

They're 'just regular people'

Upstairs, Debra Anderson keeps several cardboard boxes filled with more than 600 letters sent from across the country.

"These are from all the people who have lost children," she said, lifting a smaller bag from the pile. "I didn't realize there would be so many."

She picked up a letter from a man whose son died while on active duty in 2001 - a letter handed to her by a grief-stricken man inside Arlington National Cemetery, the same day they buried their son.

"His face - it looked like his son had died yesterday," Debra Anderson said. "I looked at Rick and I thought, 'Are we going to hurt this bad five years from now?' "

She looked back toward the letters. "I've been around the Navy all my life, and thought I knew everything about it," she said. "I know how to be a Navy wife. I know how to be a Navy mom. So many in my family were in the Navy.

"But no one has ever not come home. I never had any training on how to be the mother of a boy who wasn't coming home."

Near the letters are copies of letters from military officials, and one from President Bush, who, in a few hours, would address the nation on the state of the war in Iraq. The family planned to watch, but they refuse to second-guess the president.

"I personally have a great respect and love for President Bush," Debra Anderson said. "I'm sure it's been very hard for him to personally sign 3,000 condolence letters."

Despite her loss, she said, she tries not to think about the politics of the war.

"I don't have enough information to know if the war is right," she said. "One time on the phone I asked Christopher, 'Is this war worth it?' And he said, 'I don't know about the war, but I do know that these people need us here because they can't protect themselves."

It was the people, his family says, that he continually spoke of.

"Chris said, 'They're just regular people. It's just like Frontier Street, except so beat up. There are husbands and wives and kids just trying to make it.' "

The military presence in Iraq continues to hit them. Tuesday, they heard that one of Christopher's best friends, Navy Corpsman John Dragneff, who escorted Doc Anderson's body home to Longmont - just received orders to deploy.

"When we found out, we were thinking, 'Oh no.' We pretty much adopted him as part of the family, and now he's going there," Rick Anderson said.

When Kyle Anderson spoke to Dragneff on Tuesday, he said he would make a deal with the man he also calls his brother.

"Some of these medical bags, I'm going to give them to John, but only on loan," he said, holding up one of his brother's backpacks. "The one condition is that he has to return them in person."

As she continued to sift through the letters, Debra Anderson shook her head. "They all call him a hero. A hero," she said. "As a mother, I see my son in a lot of ways, but I gotta say I still can't grasp that word."

A final letter comes home

Inside the boxes rested one last surprise.

"Dad, here's a letter to you," Kyle Anderson said, holding up two pages in his brother's handwriting.

The letter is dated Nov. 27, one week before Christopher Anderson's death.

"What up old man, I mean Chief," Rick Anderson read.

As he continued to read, he lost his smile.

"This place is as bad as you can imagine and the Devil has his throne across the street from me," he read.

The family wrote Christopher frequently, but he never wrote back, preferring to call, which he did at least once a week, chewing up satellite phone time like a teenage girl.

As they read the letter, they surmised why it was never sent.

"He didn't want you to worry," -Kyle Anderson said, as he got to the section of the letter where his brother wrote of losing a good friend in combat.

Then, wide-eyed, he read the prophetic words that followed.

"It is hard on me and the guys, but I could only imagine what his family is thinking.

"He was a great kid and him and I joked around all the time. He will be missed here. Things like this is why we think about life, love and happiness in a new light.

"For me, writing about it is my way of letting him go, and embracing my memories and trying to rid the Fear. He died with a great Fight and love for us and his country. He will never be forgotten He is a true hero and Marine."

sheelerj@RockyMountainNews.com

Ellie