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Veterans honored in ceremonies

Nov-12-2004 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

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By M.L. LYKE, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

KENT -- Patches of bare dirt were still visible yesterday on the new grave where Army Staff Sgt. Michael Burbank was laid to rest only three weeks ago. "Iraq freedom. No greater love than this," read the epitaph on his granite tombstone at Tahoma National Cemetery.

"It still just doesn't feel like it's the right person in there -- that it's the right name on the stone," said his 28-year-old wife, Shawna. She visited the grave on a foggy Veterans Day "just to talk to him." [...]

Visiting for the first time yesterday were the children of Shana Elstrom -- Colton, 8, and Chloe, 7. Elstrom said she brought them to show them "how important it is to be an American, and to pay our respects." The family has no relatives buried there, but that wasn't the point. "I want them to know that these soldiers fought for our country, died for our country," she said.

The two children looked wide-eyed at the graves of Burbank and Sullivan, when she told them that they died in a war that is going on "right now."

"I just feel it's important that they understand what they see on the news is real. These people are real -- they have families," said Elstrom.

At the time they died in Iraq, Burbank was 34 and Sullivan 27, both decades younger than most of the fallen soldiers buried around them -- soldiers from Korea, World War II, Vietnam.


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