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thedrifter
06-18-08, 02:24 PM
Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Marine's widow faces life, parenting alone
Amanda woman thankful for support of military, family

Trish Bennett

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

AMANDA - Amber Kimple knew something was wrong when her father called in the middle of the night May 3. Two U.S. Marines in full uniform were at his door looking for her, and he needed to know her street address.

Within minutes, the soldiers were at Amber's door delivering a shocking blow - her husband was missing in action in Iraq.

Ten hours later, the soldiers returned.

"We regret to inform you that your husband, Lance Corporal James F. Kimple, was killed in action during a routine combat operation..."

Amber can repeat the words as if reading from an official document, but she doesn't have to see them to remember.

"That's exactly how they said it," she said. "I will never forget how they told me."

•••

Amber Kimple became the bride of a United States Marine in the summer of 2005. Less than three years later, at age 22, she became a widow and a single mother of two.

James Kimple, 21, was killed May 2 by a roadside bomb that exploded near his Humvee in the Anbar province of Iraq, west of Baghdad. A machine gunner assigned to a security convoy, James and three of his comrades died when their Humvee was hit by an improvised explosive device.

He was thrown nearly 200 feet from the blast, leading the Marine Corps to list him "missing in action" until his body was located and recovered.

James died on his second tour of duty in Iraq.

Within days, Amber found herself at an airport in Columbus, escorting her husband's casket home to Amanda. Kimple was buried that Saturday in Green Township Cemetery, just one week after his death, when he was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.

After the initial shock of her husband's death and the blur of an unexpected military funeral, Amber now faces a much different future than she ever anticipated. She also feels the strain of coping with her private pain in a very public fish bowl.

"A lot of people have been very supportive," she said. "But there are some who just want to be in your business, judging you about what kind of mother you're going to be and things like that."

That's one reason, she said, behind her decision to move to Circleville and out of the small-town setting of Amanda, her hometown. The larger the city, she believes, the easier to be anonymous, and her family will still be close by.

Amber also has an extended family, she said, in the U.S. Marine Corps.

"His platoon calls me once or twice a week from Iraq," she said. "They e-mail me all the time to see how the kids are doing and if we need anything."

The Marines, she said, take care of their own.

"They're right there if I need them," Amber said.

She has also been assigned a staff sergeant from Lima Company at Rickenbacker as a liaison to provide whatever assistance she may need as Kimple's next of kin. The Marines provided the funeral planning and pall bearers, a 21-gun salute, flag folding, taps and casket guards for the closed-casket viewing.

Her liaison will remain in contact with her periodically, too, to insure she and her children receive all entitlements that are due Kimple's next of kin.

•••

Though devastated by his loss, Amber said she finds some comfort in the fact that James loved his family back home as well as the Marine Corps he died serving.

And though now without her husband, she is not without his memory. She sees him every day in the faces of their children, Drake, age 2, and Maleah, age 1.

Kimple also has another son, Dominic, from a previous relationship.

Though her two children are too young to understand and will never truly know their father, she said she intends to keep him in their memories, as well.

"I will never, ever take his pictures down," she said. "His kids will know their dad every step of the way."

The children will have much more than photos, though, by which to remember their father. As the dependents of a Marine killed in action, they will receive medical benefits through age 18 and will attend college through scholarships from the Veterans Administration's Dependent Education Assistance Program and the Ohio War Orphans Scholarship Fund.

As Kimple's surviving spouse, Amber will receive medical benefits for three years, she said, at which time she becomes eligible to pay for her own insurance in the military retirement plan through the Department of Defense.

She is also eligible for scholarship funds through the VA, which she intends to use to pursue a career in military law.

"I get to go to school, too, and I've been looking at Ohio University," Amber said. "I'd like to do something like military probation or something in the JAG corps."

Whatever direction her life ultimately takes, Amber said she will provide for her children and always keep James and his sacrifice in her thoughts.

Her immediate plans include organizing a poker run to benefit Drake and Maleah sometime this summer. She is also on the hunt for a bicycle to join a cycling tour from Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C. next spring in support of American soldiers killed in action.

Ellie