Boy, 12, Given Military Burial

Boy, 12, Given Military Burial

December 23, 2008
Knight Ridder

MILLERSPORT, Ohio -- The Soldiers flanked the casket, solemn and precise, and folded the American flag with a yank-and-flip motion. On one knee, a sergeant presented the flag to a grieving mother.

Around them, mourners with red eyes and heaving shoulders testified, silently, to the mark Dennis Channel Jr. left on each of them.

Seven Soldiers from the Ohio Army National Guard raised their rifles and fired three rounds. A lone bugler sounded taps, a haunting call that wafted over the nearby graves of veterans.

Dennis, known to all as "Bubba," was buried Monday with full military honors.

He was 12 years old.

The Millersport boy was too young to be a Soldier or a veteran, for whom such an honor is generally reserved.

Sgt. Maj. Rebecca Herzog had never led an honor guard at a funeral for anyone out of uniform, except a member of Congress, in 10 years on the job. But Dennis deserved it, the Guard decided.

He was his own kind of warrior. He waged a battle with brain cancer, diagnosed when he was just 5 years old. He was a brave Soldier, all agreed, one who changed the world for the better.

Dennis died, holding his parents' hands, shortly after 3 a.m. Friday, Dec. 19.
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