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Shortly After His Father, Marine Is Laid To Rest
Night Stalker
Member Posts: 11,967
Washington Post
November 30, 2004
Pg. B1
Shortly After His Father, Md. Marine Is Laid To Rest At Arlington
By Mary Otto, Washington Post Staff Writer
About six months ago, Marine Cpl. Dale A. Burger Jr. stood in Section 54 of Arlington National Cemetery and saluted his father's coffin.
And soon after the funeral, the young rifleman from Port Deposit, a community northeast of Baltimore, returned to Iraq to serve a second tour.
Yesterday, Burger, 21, was buried with full military honors two headstones away from his father.
Burger, who was assigned to the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, died in Iraq on Nov. 14 as the result of enemy action in Anbar province. The military has not released further details, but the province includes Fallujah, where Army troops and Marines launched a major assault to drive out insurgents.
He was the fourth Marine from Maryland to die in Iraq in a one-week period.
Burger's mother, Martina, was again at Arlington yesterday -- to receive the folded flag from her son's coffin, just as she had months before at the funeral for her husband, Dale A. Burger Sr., a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War.
Just as before, Staff Sgt. Charles E. Dorsey, the Marine Corps funeral director, was there to place the flag in her hands.
They remembered one another, Dorsey said.
"I looked into her eyes, and I got a little choked up," said Dorsey, a veteran of many funerals. He searched for the right words for the bereaved wife and mother.
"On behalf of my family, the Dorsey family and the Marines standing here from Marine Barracks Washington, D.C., please accept our sympathy," he recalled saying to her.
"She was crying," he added.
He kissed her on the cheek.
Martina Burger could not be reached for comment yesterday. But in an interview with The Washington Post soon after she received news of her son's death, she reflected on his life and the importance he placed on following his father's path into the Marine Corps. His father had been injured in the Vietnam War, and later, during a medical procedure, became more severely disabled.
The younger Burger was based at Camp Pendleton in California. When he came back home to Maryland, he would carry his disabled father up the stairs, cradling him in his arms like a child.
His mother said the two men saw their wars as deeply personal experiences. "It was not just the war we saw on TV," she said.
She said she did not understand the war in Iraq and once told her son so. She recalled his reply: "Mom, I'm not supposed to talk about it, but those people need us. We need to help them."
About a week before he died, he was struck with shrapnel in the forearm and had to sit out a few days because of the injury. The day before he died, he called his mother to tell her he was going back into battle. He didn't want to let his fellow Marines down.
NSDQ!
"The Lord knows the way I take, and when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold" JOB 23:10
November 30, 2004
Pg. B1
Shortly After His Father, Md. Marine Is Laid To Rest At Arlington
By Mary Otto, Washington Post Staff Writer
About six months ago, Marine Cpl. Dale A. Burger Jr. stood in Section 54 of Arlington National Cemetery and saluted his father's coffin.
And soon after the funeral, the young rifleman from Port Deposit, a community northeast of Baltimore, returned to Iraq to serve a second tour.
Yesterday, Burger, 21, was buried with full military honors two headstones away from his father.
Burger, who was assigned to the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, died in Iraq on Nov. 14 as the result of enemy action in Anbar province. The military has not released further details, but the province includes Fallujah, where Army troops and Marines launched a major assault to drive out insurgents.
He was the fourth Marine from Maryland to die in Iraq in a one-week period.
Burger's mother, Martina, was again at Arlington yesterday -- to receive the folded flag from her son's coffin, just as she had months before at the funeral for her husband, Dale A. Burger Sr., a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War.
Just as before, Staff Sgt. Charles E. Dorsey, the Marine Corps funeral director, was there to place the flag in her hands.
They remembered one another, Dorsey said.
"I looked into her eyes, and I got a little choked up," said Dorsey, a veteran of many funerals. He searched for the right words for the bereaved wife and mother.
"On behalf of my family, the Dorsey family and the Marines standing here from Marine Barracks Washington, D.C., please accept our sympathy," he recalled saying to her.
"She was crying," he added.
He kissed her on the cheek.
Martina Burger could not be reached for comment yesterday. But in an interview with The Washington Post soon after she received news of her son's death, she reflected on his life and the importance he placed on following his father's path into the Marine Corps. His father had been injured in the Vietnam War, and later, during a medical procedure, became more severely disabled.
The younger Burger was based at Camp Pendleton in California. When he came back home to Maryland, he would carry his disabled father up the stairs, cradling him in his arms like a child.
His mother said the two men saw their wars as deeply personal experiences. "It was not just the war we saw on TV," she said.
She said she did not understand the war in Iraq and once told her son so. She recalled his reply: "Mom, I'm not supposed to talk about it, but those people need us. We need to help them."
About a week before he died, he was struck with shrapnel in the forearm and had to sit out a few days because of the injury. The day before he died, he called his mother to tell her he was going back into battle. He didn't want to let his fellow Marines down.
NSDQ!
"The Lord knows the way I take, and when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold" JOB 23:10
Comments
Hylander
"I choose battles I believe to be just."