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Tearful service honors Mainer

Apr-26-2004 » Filed Under: Iraq News

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By BILL NEMITZ, Staff Writer

MOSUL, Iraq - They sat shoulder to shoulder Saturday morning, 34 to a row and 15 rows deep, an entire battalion besieged by grief.

Many dabbed at their eyes as the lyrics to "Arms of the Angels" wafted through the hangar-sized building at Camp Marez. Others just stared at the impeccably arranged memorial - an M-16 rifle standing barrel-down between a pair of boots, a helmet perched atop the rifle stock, a set of dog tags hanging off the weapon's handle, a soldier's shirt with the name "Gelineau" stitched above the left pocket - as if they still didn't believe what they were seeing.

Who could blame them?

A week ago, the Maine Army National Guard's 133rd Engineer Battalion was almost two months into keeping its promise that everyone would return home safely from this 12-month deployment in northern Iraq.

Then last Tuesday, the earth shook with a bomb so powerful it turned an armored Humvee into a ball of twisted, molten metal. And when the smoke finally cleared, Spc. Christopher Gelineau, 23, of Portland was dead.


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