thedrifter
04-27-07, 07:19 AM
Tears and salutes
Aurora Marine laid to rest
April 27, 2007
Under the drizzle of rain Thursday morning, Marines fired a rifle salute for Lance Cpl. Jesse De La Torre.
It was the third time in two years mourners had come to bury an Auroran killed in Iraq.
Not that routine ever dampens the grief.
At separate moments at Riverside Cemetery, the 29-year-old Marine's mother, Raquel De La Torre, and sister, Corina Padilla, hunched over as they broke into sobs, muffled only as they pressed their faces into their own hands or in the arms of loved ones.
About 150 other family, friends and community members also attended the funeral at St. Mary's Catholic Church.
They prayed and wiped away tears as they dropped roses on the casket of another one of Aurora's fallen soldiers.
Ellie
thedrifter
04-27-07, 07:21 AM
Family, friends say their goodbyes
April 27, 2007
By JUSTINA WANG and Christine Moyer SUN-TIMES NEWS GROUP
AURORA -- Two minutes before the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Jesse De La Torre of Aurora, the pews of St. Mary's Catholic Church were silent as dozens of mourners stood motionless and waited.
And then:
A stream of family and friends following a wooden casket, hands placed gently on one another's shoulders.
Thirteen uniformed Marines sitting in the back rows, white-gloves clutching white caps.
Corina Padilla's outstretched arm, reaching from her seat as she let her fingers stroke and linger on the side of her brother's coffin.
Twenty-nine-year-old Jesse De La Torre, a 1998 East Aurora High School graduate who played the saxophone and carried his Bible to classes, was killed April 16 in Iraq.
Those who gathered Thursday prayed and mourned during the funeral Mass, as the Rev. Timothy Piasecki told them to remember De La Torre's strong faith.
"We Christians understand death has two faces," Piasecki said. "Yes, indeed something precious has died. ... But there is also birth. Death becomes a passageway (to) more life, fuller life ...
"We lay aside for a moment our shock at the brutal way he died and take great pride and comfort in the way he lived. ... He loved the Lord."
After the church service, Ramon Montanez, who huddled close to his wife as Marines carried the flag-draped casket to the hearse, said De La Torre once told him he wanted to become a priest.
"He tried to help everybody," said Montanez, who knew De La Torre through church.
At Riverside Cemetery, his fellow Marines also honored De La Torre's sense of patriotism, presenting his parents, Aureliano and Raquel, with American flags and his Purple Heart.
People who didn't know De La Torre simply came to pay their respects to the third East High graduate killed while fighting in Iraq.
"Those kids fall for us, really," said Anna Calderon, whose nephew -- also a Marine serving in Iraq -- was De La Torre's friend.
Standing alone, Cpl. Antonio Garcia watched as other Marines flanked the coffin of his battalion mate in Iraq, his buddy who never drank at bars and continued smiling even as senior Marines barked orders at him.
Garcia lost two other close friends in the war, but De La Torre's funeral is the first he's been able to attend since returning from Iraq.
Ellie