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Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Military ceremony honors local sailor
By ANDREW LYONS | News-Journal Staff Writer
ORMOND BEACH — Michael Charles Anderson was more than a sailor. He was a generous friend known for fixing a pal’s car and the bicycle of a neighborhood child.
“I was never even aware of all the selfless acts he had done,” his wife, Karen, wrote in a letter read Tuesday during his funeral.
Last week, the Navy sailor made the greatest sacrifice of all: He gave his life for his country.
More than 200 friends, family members and fellow soldiers gathered at Prince of Peace Catholic Church to remember the Daytona Beach man killed May 2 after mortar fire hit a building where he and two other sailors were working near Ramadi, Iraq.
Besides his wife, Anderson, 37, left behind a 7-year-old daughter, Brandi. Family and friends say she adored him.
“He goes into eternity as a great man who suffered and died for us,” Assistant Pastor Harry Wallace said. “For that, we are eternally grateful.”
A total of 772 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations.
Anderson joined the U.S. Navy after graduating from high school in Oshkosh, Wis., in 1985. He had recently worked at Baylor Plastering & Drywall in Holly Hill. His Naval Reserve unit was deployed April 1.
The 730-person Seabee unit – Navy Mobile Construction Battalion 14 out of Naval Air Station Jacksonville – was charged with carrying out humanitarian aid in Iraq.
At his grave in Volusia Memorial Park, seven sailors fired three shots each in honor of Anderson. His wife was presented with the Purple Heart, awarded in the name of the president of the United States after a soldier is killed by the enemy.
Methodically, uniformed soldiers folded the American flag that draped Anderson’s silver casket. The flag was then handed to his widow.
Two buglers played taps, and Karen Anderson leaned over and kissed Brandi.
Michael Anderson’s friend Jon Chadwick is a sailor in Anderson’s unit but has not been deployed to Iraq. While others wept during Tuesday’s funeral service, Chadwick remembered happier times.
During combat training at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, the two men were ordered to assist soldiers on the front lines during a mock enemy attack. Their weapons were supposed to be loaded with blanks but were empty.
Fearing they would be taken prisoner, the two hid in a foxhole until the “enemy” passed. It worked.
“Instead of going ‘bang, bang,’ we just stayed there until it was all over,” Chadwick, 35, said, smiling. “We laughed later.
“He was just a sweetheart of a guy.”