thedrifter
03-21-08, 02:53 PM
One of the first to die in the Iraq War, Ryan Beaupre is still remembered
03/20/2008, 2:51 pm
By Robert Themer
rthemer@daily-journal.com
815- 937-3369
"I still remember the day we shook hands in the desert. I'll never forget how brave you were. Your sacrifice will never be forgotten. I miss you Swoop -- Semper Fi."
The message was posted for last Memorial Day on the Web page "A Hero Goes Home -- Captain Ryan Beaupre."
It's from Matt Belisle of Gainesville, Fla. -- Beaupre's Marine tent mate in Kuwait.
It's one of nearly 16,000 messages on the Ryan's Page site since he died five years ago today, making him one of the first Americans to die as the war in Iraq began.
That's messages, not hits. A trickle now, the last on Dec. 23, they came by the hundreds per day for a long time. And that's just one of many Web sites and postings devoted to the heroic helicopter pilot from St. Anne.
His Marine buddies called him "Swoop" because he was so devoted to flying that "when he was training to earn his HAC (helicopter air command), his colonel said that every time there was a chance to fly, Ryan would swoop down to get it," his father, Mark, explained in an interview last week.
"The more flying you did, the closer you got to your HAC," his mother, Nicky, added.
He always wanted to fly, his older sister, Alyse, said. After college, he worked briefly as an accountant for a large insurance company but "came home and told us he thought he could do more by joining the Marines and becoming a pilot," she said. He joined in 1995 and got his wings in '99.
He died five years ago, on March 21, 2003 in the war zone (still March 20 here) when his helicopter crashed along the Kuwait-Iraq border during preparations to invade Iraq. Three other U.S. Marines and eight British Marines died with him.
He had not been eager for war and hoped it would inflict as little damage as possible. "I remember his second to last letter," his father said. "He was hoping the people of Iraq would surrender fast because the weapons we have are so terrible."
Symbol of sacrifice
Ryan was devoted to the Marines and to the country. When he died, the country immediately adopted him and his family as a symbol of the sacrifice of war.
The world's media came to tiny St. Anne, nearly blocking Station Street, illuminating the night and training cameras on the Beaupre home.
"I don't even remember the media being there," Nicky said. "I remember Terry Sirois (a lifelong friend and village board member) asking me: 'Do you want me to make them go away?' and I said: 'Who?' What I remember is the Marines being in the house and the rest was a big blur."
Ryan returned home at the end of March. His funeral, a national media event well-controlled by then Police Chief Glenn Houk, was April 3. A week later, Nicky's mother, Eleanor Bieber, died.
Tremendous sympathy
An outpouring of sympathy came from the St. Anne community, where Mark and Nicky have lived virtually all their lives, and from the world at large. Even total strangers, crossing the country in travel, have stopped to offer their condolences and pay tribute to Ryan.
The St. Anne community "has been wonderful," he said. ""I just can't say enough about the people of St. Anne. I think they felt a lot of pain in losing a member of the group, one of their own. The town supported us."
The outpouring "helped validate Ryan's effect," Nicky said. "You are always proud of your child, but it was awesome." Mark added, it was "awe-inspiring that the goodness in his life affected so many people that way."
Nicky continued, "It's a pull between pride and ..." Mark finishes "grief, your loss. It's hard to explain."
"Sometimes I think that in the depth of grief you go through, there's this total numbness," Nicky said. "Then you repress all feeling. You're afraid to connect with anyone because of the fear of loss."
She poured out her grief and despair in her journal. She reads a sample from 2003: "I wake up crying. I go to sleep crying. Is it depression or grief or am I going insane?" She adds: "I went to that from being well and cocooned up and having a family and everything was right."
Despite her faith, she said of another passage, "This is where I wrote of being angry with God."
They participated in the St. Anne Memorial Day event 10 weeks after Ryan's death and were proud when President George W. Bush honored Ryan during his address at Arlington National Cemetery by reading from his last letter home.
But they generally declined invitations to public appearances, including Gov. Rod Blagojevich's inauguration.
"Lt. Gov. (Pat) Quinn has invited us to a lot of things," Mark said. "I don't know if he thinks we're ungrateful, but we usually don't go because it's agonizing to think about going."
"I think it is more comfortable now," Nicky said. "It's always the anticipation of some date or an anniversary ... of a birthday ... of Memorial Day ...
"I think in that early grief stage it took so much strength to get from one day to the next, you couldn't take on any extra responsibility. Just staying clean and eating is all you could do."
The family circle
Most difficult for them, said Nicky, was talking about Ryan's death with his siblings -- Alyse, Christopher and Kari.
"They lost their brother and their grieving was different," she said. "We didn't want to hurt them, so we didn't talk about it for three years. It was like walking a round an elephant in this room for three years."
Mark and Nicky went through two years of counseling and "the counselor said we would never get over it if we didn't talk about it," Nicky said.
When they finally broke the family silence, Alyse expressed how difficult it had been. Mark said: "I like what Alyse said. Alyse used to call him the perfect child and she said; 'Now he's not the perfect child, he's a saint and how can you compete with that?'...
"Each person in the family is a part of the circle and if you take a part out you don't know what to do."
Another crisis for Mark in 2005. He had long operated an inspection bureau franchised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to monitor grain in local elevators. As he put it: "Then you're told that you've lost your passion for your job and the government comes and takes your job away. ... One part of your government is naming the Post Office for your son, and another part comes and takes your job away." He retired in 2006.
"You were in a state of depression," said Nicky, a nurse. "In the medical professions we are supposed to look at depression as an illness and the government didn't do that."
Mark works part-time now at the Riverside Health Fitness Center in Bourbonnais, where he said, "A lot of people who didn't know Ryan and didn't know me, have come up to talk about him."
Avoiding the news
Five years later, the Beaupres still avoid news of the war and the debate over it.
"Every night when I look at the obituaries in the newspaper I think I see Ryan's," Nicky said. "There's a report on the number of men and women killed in the war. Nobody but us would look at it that way."
How do they react to criticism of the war?
Nicky thinks back to the beginning. "There was not enough energy to react then," she said.
"The news media spin it the way they want," Mark said. "I don't watch the news." Mark is "not a Bush man" but doesn't second-guess the President. "I don't know what information he gets in his briefings. What I think is, if Bush is right or wrong, we haven't been attacked since 2001."
"It's not policies you support or the people in office," Nicky added. "It's the men and women in our military. I think people don't realize we are at war anymore. We go about our business and our lives, but we are at war."
In Ryan's last letter home, the Marine apologized to his parents: "I'm sorry for the pain that I have caused you because of this.
"Please do not be upset with the Marine Corps, the military, the government or the President. It was my choice to go into the military. The President and my higher commanders were just doing what they thought was best. Realize that I died doing something that I truly love, and for a purpose greater than myself."
Mark said, "At the time of Ryan's funeral. I asked one of the NBC reporters: 'Why is there so much attention for Ryan's death?' and he said; 'Because he's the first.' "
Since then, nearly 4,000 U.S. troops have died.
"With these kids who are dying now," Mark said, "There is just as much pain in their parents hearts."
Ellie
03/20/2008, 2:51 pm
By Robert Themer
rthemer@daily-journal.com
815- 937-3369
"I still remember the day we shook hands in the desert. I'll never forget how brave you were. Your sacrifice will never be forgotten. I miss you Swoop -- Semper Fi."
The message was posted for last Memorial Day on the Web page "A Hero Goes Home -- Captain Ryan Beaupre."
It's from Matt Belisle of Gainesville, Fla. -- Beaupre's Marine tent mate in Kuwait.
It's one of nearly 16,000 messages on the Ryan's Page site since he died five years ago today, making him one of the first Americans to die as the war in Iraq began.
That's messages, not hits. A trickle now, the last on Dec. 23, they came by the hundreds per day for a long time. And that's just one of many Web sites and postings devoted to the heroic helicopter pilot from St. Anne.
His Marine buddies called him "Swoop" because he was so devoted to flying that "when he was training to earn his HAC (helicopter air command), his colonel said that every time there was a chance to fly, Ryan would swoop down to get it," his father, Mark, explained in an interview last week.
"The more flying you did, the closer you got to your HAC," his mother, Nicky, added.
He always wanted to fly, his older sister, Alyse, said. After college, he worked briefly as an accountant for a large insurance company but "came home and told us he thought he could do more by joining the Marines and becoming a pilot," she said. He joined in 1995 and got his wings in '99.
He died five years ago, on March 21, 2003 in the war zone (still March 20 here) when his helicopter crashed along the Kuwait-Iraq border during preparations to invade Iraq. Three other U.S. Marines and eight British Marines died with him.
He had not been eager for war and hoped it would inflict as little damage as possible. "I remember his second to last letter," his father said. "He was hoping the people of Iraq would surrender fast because the weapons we have are so terrible."
Symbol of sacrifice
Ryan was devoted to the Marines and to the country. When he died, the country immediately adopted him and his family as a symbol of the sacrifice of war.
The world's media came to tiny St. Anne, nearly blocking Station Street, illuminating the night and training cameras on the Beaupre home.
"I don't even remember the media being there," Nicky said. "I remember Terry Sirois (a lifelong friend and village board member) asking me: 'Do you want me to make them go away?' and I said: 'Who?' What I remember is the Marines being in the house and the rest was a big blur."
Ryan returned home at the end of March. His funeral, a national media event well-controlled by then Police Chief Glenn Houk, was April 3. A week later, Nicky's mother, Eleanor Bieber, died.
Tremendous sympathy
An outpouring of sympathy came from the St. Anne community, where Mark and Nicky have lived virtually all their lives, and from the world at large. Even total strangers, crossing the country in travel, have stopped to offer their condolences and pay tribute to Ryan.
The St. Anne community "has been wonderful," he said. ""I just can't say enough about the people of St. Anne. I think they felt a lot of pain in losing a member of the group, one of their own. The town supported us."
The outpouring "helped validate Ryan's effect," Nicky said. "You are always proud of your child, but it was awesome." Mark added, it was "awe-inspiring that the goodness in his life affected so many people that way."
Nicky continued, "It's a pull between pride and ..." Mark finishes "grief, your loss. It's hard to explain."
"Sometimes I think that in the depth of grief you go through, there's this total numbness," Nicky said. "Then you repress all feeling. You're afraid to connect with anyone because of the fear of loss."
She poured out her grief and despair in her journal. She reads a sample from 2003: "I wake up crying. I go to sleep crying. Is it depression or grief or am I going insane?" She adds: "I went to that from being well and cocooned up and having a family and everything was right."
Despite her faith, she said of another passage, "This is where I wrote of being angry with God."
They participated in the St. Anne Memorial Day event 10 weeks after Ryan's death and were proud when President George W. Bush honored Ryan during his address at Arlington National Cemetery by reading from his last letter home.
But they generally declined invitations to public appearances, including Gov. Rod Blagojevich's inauguration.
"Lt. Gov. (Pat) Quinn has invited us to a lot of things," Mark said. "I don't know if he thinks we're ungrateful, but we usually don't go because it's agonizing to think about going."
"I think it is more comfortable now," Nicky said. "It's always the anticipation of some date or an anniversary ... of a birthday ... of Memorial Day ...
"I think in that early grief stage it took so much strength to get from one day to the next, you couldn't take on any extra responsibility. Just staying clean and eating is all you could do."
The family circle
Most difficult for them, said Nicky, was talking about Ryan's death with his siblings -- Alyse, Christopher and Kari.
"They lost their brother and their grieving was different," she said. "We didn't want to hurt them, so we didn't talk about it for three years. It was like walking a round an elephant in this room for three years."
Mark and Nicky went through two years of counseling and "the counselor said we would never get over it if we didn't talk about it," Nicky said.
When they finally broke the family silence, Alyse expressed how difficult it had been. Mark said: "I like what Alyse said. Alyse used to call him the perfect child and she said; 'Now he's not the perfect child, he's a saint and how can you compete with that?'...
"Each person in the family is a part of the circle and if you take a part out you don't know what to do."
Another crisis for Mark in 2005. He had long operated an inspection bureau franchised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to monitor grain in local elevators. As he put it: "Then you're told that you've lost your passion for your job and the government comes and takes your job away. ... One part of your government is naming the Post Office for your son, and another part comes and takes your job away." He retired in 2006.
"You were in a state of depression," said Nicky, a nurse. "In the medical professions we are supposed to look at depression as an illness and the government didn't do that."
Mark works part-time now at the Riverside Health Fitness Center in Bourbonnais, where he said, "A lot of people who didn't know Ryan and didn't know me, have come up to talk about him."
Avoiding the news
Five years later, the Beaupres still avoid news of the war and the debate over it.
"Every night when I look at the obituaries in the newspaper I think I see Ryan's," Nicky said. "There's a report on the number of men and women killed in the war. Nobody but us would look at it that way."
How do they react to criticism of the war?
Nicky thinks back to the beginning. "There was not enough energy to react then," she said.
"The news media spin it the way they want," Mark said. "I don't watch the news." Mark is "not a Bush man" but doesn't second-guess the President. "I don't know what information he gets in his briefings. What I think is, if Bush is right or wrong, we haven't been attacked since 2001."
"It's not policies you support or the people in office," Nicky added. "It's the men and women in our military. I think people don't realize we are at war anymore. We go about our business and our lives, but we are at war."
In Ryan's last letter home, the Marine apologized to his parents: "I'm sorry for the pain that I have caused you because of this.
"Please do not be upset with the Marine Corps, the military, the government or the President. It was my choice to go into the military. The President and my higher commanders were just doing what they thought was best. Realize that I died doing something that I truly love, and for a purpose greater than myself."
Mark said, "At the time of Ryan's funeral. I asked one of the NBC reporters: 'Why is there so much attention for Ryan's death?' and he said; 'Because he's the first.' "
Since then, nearly 4,000 U.S. troops have died.
"With these kids who are dying now," Mark said, "There is just as much pain in their parents hearts."
Ellie