Lima Marines Not Forgotten 10 Years Later

Families struggle 10 years after Ohio Marines killed in Iraq 
The Associated Press
By Dan Sewell
August 1, 2015

Two memorial events are scheduled for this month for the 23 people Lima Company lost over a 5-month period of 2005.

In this July 28, 2015 photo Pat Murray, left, and Ken Kreuter sit beneath a portrait of their son Marine Sgt. David Kreuter, top right, at the traveling Eyes of Freedom Lima Company Memorial currently displayed at the Cincinnati Masonic Center. (Photo: John Minchillo/AP)

CINCINNATI — Some people look surprised and tell him they just can't believe it's been 10 years already. For Keith Wightman, time hasn't passed quickly at all.

It ticks by slowly as he thinks every day of the loss of his only son — gazing at the spruce tree planted a decade ago in his yard and now marked with a cross, plaque and spotlight. He's seen his son's high school friends and former teammates start careers and families while he daydreams about what might have been for Lance Corporal Brett Wightman, whose future was blown away with those of 10 other members of Columbus-based Lima Company on Aug. 3, 2005.

Wightman promised that his dead son wouldn't be forgotten, a pledge that other families of the lost members of Lima Company have also taken to heart, establishing scholarship programs, foundations and other benefits to help others in the names of the young men — sons, brothers, husbands, fathers — lost that summer. Two memorial events are scheduled for this month for the 23 people Lima Company lost over a 5-month period of 2005.

Aug. 3 was the company's darkest day.

Wightman remembers vividly, "like yesterday," the early morning hours he spent looking at a moonlit sky wondering what his son was up to. Lance Cpl. Wightman had gone on a mission to flush out enemy combatants who had attacked six Marines two days earlier when his amphibious assault vehicle rumbled onto explosives. Eleven members of Lima Company and three other Marines were killed along with an Iraqi interpreter.
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