The simple 20-minute ceremony paid tribute to Sgt. 1st Class Christopher D. Shaw and Staff Sgt. Jack M. Martin III, who were killed in a bomb blast Sept. 29 on Jolo Island in the Philippines. The two Green Berets were from the 3rd Battalion.
Friends and family members filled three rows of folding chairs on the field outside 1st Group headquarters. About 300 soldiers stood in formation in the cold, clear morning, facing the unit’s memorial wall.
Erected in 2004, the wall bears 164 names. Shaw and Martin were the newest additions.
“They died fighting for the freedom of others,” said Col. Tom Johnson, 1st Group’s deputy commander. “They immersed themselves in something bigger than themselves.”
Shaw, 37, was a native of Natchez, Miss., and attended Texas Southern University on a track and field scholarship. He leaves behind a wife, Attina, and five children.
Martin, 26, was the youngest of five children in Maquoketa, Iowa. He is survived by his wife, Ashley, parents Jack and Cheryl Martin, and four siblings.
Their team sergeant, who sat in the front row at the ceremony, said the two men would be sorely missed.
“Chris would always give the shirt off his back, even if it was the last shirt he had,” said the sergeant, whose name was not released for publication – standard practice among the ultra-secret Green Berets.
Martin was praised for his accomplishments as a medic in Iraq, where he screened more than 2,000 patients in two years.
“Jack was the most competent man I’ve worked with in my six years at Special Forces,” the team sergeant said.
The two soldiers died in a country that is sometimes forgotten in the U.S. war on terror. Fort Lewis’ Green Berets have been at the forefront of the U.S. mission to train and support Filipino troops fighting insurgents in the nation’s southern islands for years – before the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, even before Sept. 11, 2001.
The 1st Group’s early-morning remembrance helped kick off a day when military veterans were honored all around the South Sound – from a Rotary Club in Lakewood, to a retirement community in DuPont, to a Boy Scout troop in Gig Harbor, to cemeteries all around the region.
Fort Lewis officials said they provided guest speakers, musicians or color guards in recent days for Veterans Day programs at 12 elementary schools, three middle schools, 12 high schools and one college.
The Special Forces event was emotional for Holly Griffin, who flew from Milton, Wis., to attend. Her husband, Sgt. Maj. Craig Griffin, served 27 years with the Green Berets and died of heart disease – what his widow described as complications from Gulf War illness – in November 2007.
“For me, it’s just honoring my husband, who paid the ultimate price for our country,” Holly Griffin explained as the reason for making the trip.
“Ceremony was always big with Craig,” she added.
Katrina Rojas of University Place attended at the request of Griffin. The two women met through the Survivor Outreach Services program.
Rojas’ husband, Corp. Michael Rojas of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, was killed by a bomb blast in Taji, Iraq, in 2007.
Rojas added that wives of fallen soldiers share a special camaraderie.
“The military is such a family; when our husbands die, it’s hard to still feel like a part of that family,” she said. War widows “cry with you. We’ve gone through the same thing, and we’re going to get through it together.”
Joyce Chen: 253-597-8426
joyce.chen@thenewstribune.com
