Time to honor the ultimate sacrifice (06/27/08)

To the editor:

The United States Marine Corps brought Andy home Wednesday, in a gleaming white hearse with an Honor Guard of Marine pallbearers. Spit and polish, Semper Fi, the few, the proud, The Marines and "Jay County"!

Escorted into Portland from Muncie by the Sheriff's Department, the Portland Police Department and outlying communities Dunkirk, Redkey, Pennville and Bryant Town Marshals, past a huge American flag hung from the hook and ladder Trucks of the Portland Fire Department on Meridian Street.

Those fellows, our local security personnel, had not forgotten that among the dead at Ground Zero were many firemen and policemen. They honored Andy with their solemn escort home to Portland from Muncie. They remembered his service and where he fought and died.

Andy fought our fight for us, in the mountains of the country of the people who spawned the plan to attack our land on 9/11/2001 (barely weeks after Andy started his Freshman year at Jay County High School) and he gave up his life for us in Afghanistan.

He is home now, Oh God please receive him in your loving arms.

There is a song Bob Dylan sang in the late 1960's, "Tomorrow Is a Long Time." It sure the hell is.

For all soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines who face danger and death, tomorrow is always a long time!

But we have today and today we must honor the sacrifice of this Son of Jay County.

A young, tough, good looking kid from Bryant, one of America's finest, a Marine.

Andy will take one last ride up U.S. 27 from Portland to Bryant, a road his school bus traveled many times taking him to and from his classes in the school that taught him and his classmates about America and Life, the road should be lined with Jay County residents to honor and dignify and to bid him farewell.

Elbow to elbow all the way to Gravel Hill.

Every store, every factory, everything should close in his honor for a couple of hours Friday.

That's not too long a time to give this young Marine hero.

I'm going to spit shine my shoes and put a razor sharp crease in my khakis, get my USMC flag and I'll be out there somewhere on the road, with pride in my heart and tears in my eyes, for Andy.

Once a Marine, always a Marine.

Phil Lutz

Rural Bryant

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