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thedrifter
05-28-08, 10:49 AM
May 26, 2008


Marine nightmare came to artist in a dream

By LARRY HIGGS
COASTAL MONMOUTH BUREAU

The face of a young Marine from New Jersey initially came to the artist, who created a memorial to him and 22 others, in a dream.

Friday, the image of Lance Cpl. Jourdan L. Grez, 24, one of 23 Marines from Lima Company who made the ultimate sacrifice, was immortalized on a monument unveiled on the West Plaza of the Ohio statehouse in Columbus.

"She's done a really fine job," said his father, Armand Grez, of the work by artist Anita Miller of Columbus. "It's a nice tribute to the guys. She's captured a lot."

The latest memorial is one of several scattered throughout the Shore area to the young Marine who grew up here and was killed in action on May 11, 2005, when the armored vehicle he was riding in ran over a bomb in Karabilah, Iraq, killing six Marines.

The smallest memorials were olive green plastic "Lance Armstrong" style bracelets bearing his name, which his parents Armand and Andrea, formerly of Brielle, had made up. Jourdan's name is also on memorials honoring his sacrifice in Rumson and in Neptune.

And now he is one of the few out-of-state Marines to be included on the memorial to those lost from Lima Company of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, nicknamed "Lucky Lima" based in Columbus. The company has been hard hit during Operation Iraqi freedom, losing 22 Marines and one Navy Corpsman.

According to the Lima Company Web site, the memorial consists of eight painted panels, shaped in an octagon, with portraits Miller painted of each of the 22 Marines and the Navy corpsman. In front of each portrait will be a candle with a perpetual flame and appropriate-sized bronzed combat boots.

The memorial's exterior panels will list the entire Lima Company roster, the portraits of the fallen and information about them. A shelf at the bottom of the panel will allow people to leave flowers or mementos. The memorial is designed to be a mobile memorial similar to the traveling Vietnam Memorial, also known as "The Moving Wall."

Among the portraits is a smiling Jourdan Grez on one knee, next to two of his buddies.

"She's captured the essence of these guys," said his father. "One (Marine), she painted with a pad in his hand, she didn't know (at the time) but (later) found out he was writing stories for his local paper."

Armand Grez said he learned that after he and his wife bumped into three of Jourdan's buddies, many who wrote messages to their fallen comrades on the back of the canvas of the paintings.

"She has all these insights," he said of Miller.

One of the challenges for Miller was capturing Jourdan's "Cheshire cat" smile, he said.

Armand Grez got in touch with Miller about a 1 • years ago about the memorial to provide her with photos of Jourdan. But she was already painting.

Miller said on her Web site that the idea for the memorial came in a dream. She isn't connected with the Marines, and as one officer wrote, doesn't know "a platoon and a company or a staff sergeant and a colonel. But she has been touched by this tragedy and feels a real calling to use her abilities to make this tribute."

"She said she had to do something for all the guys who were lost," said Armand Grez, who now lives with his wife in West Virginia. "She said it came to her, she had dreams about the individual guys. From pictures sent, she started drawing life-sized pictures."

Members of the Grez family planned to be in Ohio for the monument's unveiling.

"It's supposed to travel there (to the capital) until Veterans Day. Its permanent home will be in Cincinnati," Armand Grez said. "There is talk of it traveling around the country. I'd hope it would be in New Jersey some place; I'd hope it would be down the Shore."

Jourdan spent most of his childhood in the Shore area. He went to nursery school at Tower Hill in Red Bank and to grade school at Holy Cross in Rumson before the family moved to Virginia. His parents returned to New Jersey two years ago, so Armand Grez could be general manager of the Oceanic restaurant in Long Branch.

He was a combat engineer, considered one of the more dangerous assignments because their job is to find, defuse or detonate explosives. Out of concern for his parents, Jourdan told them he built bridges, his father recalled in an earlier interview.

In the Marines, Jourdan volunteered to be a corpsman, a front-line medic for his platoon, when it looked like the regular corpsman wasn't being activated, his father recalled.

Jourdan was posthumously awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with Combat "V" for Valor for his actions on May 8, 2005, during Operation Matador in New Ubaydi.

His son, Colin, is now 2 years old and bears an uncanny resemblance to photos of his father taken at the same age.

The narrative for the award said that in that Operation, he was part of a force of Marines that established a foothold in the city and allowed other forces to get a secure position. His team became separated from his platoon and while securing a booby-trapped house containing munitions, he and his team were ambushed.

"Without regard for his own safety, he immediately moved through enemy fire to a more advantageous position from which to engage the enemy. He then provided suppressive fire, allowing an injured Marine to be safely removed from enemy fire and protecting the team until they were reinforced," the award's narrative read.

About a week before his death, Armand Grez recalled that Jourdan's biggest concern was sending flowers for Mother's Day -- and making sure his mom didn't find out how much they cost. Armand Grez said that the May 5, 2005, phone call was the last time she spoke to his son. His voice waivers when he remembers that final conversation.

The unveiling closes out an emotional month for the Grez family.

"May 11 was his anniversary, and we all went out to Arlington (National Cemetery)," his father said. "When they set the date (for the monument's unveiling) we didn't realize it was (on) Memorial Day (weekend)."

Ellie