Friends, family mourn as fallen Marine makes final trip home on Veteran Day

'He always wanted to make peace' ... Friends, family mourn as fallen Marine makes final trip home on Veteran Day
BY JENNIFER A. BOWEN - News-Democrat

All along the highways and small-town streets from MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in Mascoutah to Hoyleton, people waved American flags, saluted or stood silently as the body of a Marine killed in Afghanistan made its last trip home Thursday afternoon.
American flags whipped in the breeze where they lined Illinois 177 along at least a half mile stretch into Hoyleton, the hometown of Marine Staff Sgt. Jordan B. Emrick, 26.
Emrick, an eight-year Marine veteran, was killed Friday by a roadside bomb in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan. He had been serving with a company from Camp Pendleton in California and specialized in ordnance disposal.
He was the guy who found and defused bombs.
Emrick's body landed at MidAmerica after noon Thursday, and a procession of emergency vehicles, friends and family, and several hundred motorcycle riders with the Freedom Riders and the American Legion Riders, escorted the hearse carrying Emrick to the Styninger Funeral Chapel in Hoyleton.
Brandon Szwopinski, 26, of Hoyleton, grew up with Emrick and considered him family.
The two spent their childhood playing sports together and enlisted in the Marines months apart. Szwopinski has been deployed to Iraq and is preparing for a possible deployment to Afghanistan.
The death of his childhood friend and fellow Marine does not make him anxious or worried about his potential deployment.


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