Andrew Alonzo was alive in Iraq, family was told he died

A Brother’s Keeper
Before being deployed to Iraq in 2003, Andrew Alonzo worked as a caretaker at one of the nation's largest military cemeteries. When he came home, that graveyard helped save his life.


By Jim Moscou Newsweek Web Exclusive
May 7, 2008 Updated: 11:48 a.m. ET May 7, 2008
A cemetery saved Andrew Alonzo's life. Before leaving for Iraq in 2003, the 13-year Marine Corps veteran already knew the cost of war. For nearly six years Alonzo worked at the Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver, a 214-acre resting place for more than 75,000 veterans. His duty: setting those iconic marble headstones, mined in Georgia, mostly for a passing generation of World War II vets. After a year in one of Iraq's deadliest regions, Alonzo found himself back at his old job. Like so many vets returning home, his fight was far from over.

NEWSWEEK's Jim Moscou visited the 46-year-old Colorado native last week at the cemetery. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Your friend, Staff Sgt. Mark Lawton, was killed in Iraq in 2003. What happened?

Andrew Alonzo: Ambush. It was the first time we got ambushed on both sides of the road. We were near the Iranian border. He was a comrade, a good friend. When I found out he was a casualty, it was like, "Wow, I just talked to him." I took a photo of him the day before sitting under a tree, reading a Bible. It was the last photo ever taken of him.

You had to leave the Marines during force-reduction cuts in the mid-1990s, and you later joined the Army Reserves. Did you think you'd ever be called up for war?

No, I never did. I had been on vacation when I got the call. It was a shock. I walked into the [Fort Logan cemetery] front office, and said to the foreman, "I got to go." And I was gone. Three months after the war started we went in, the 244th Engineering Battalion out of Boulder.
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