Marine Lance Cpl. Matthias N. Hanson

Book Reports!! Boy, do I remember them! Luckily I was a book lover so it was no problem for me to quickly devour the book and whip out a report. My ten year old also likes to read but he was assigned a biography of Abraham Lincoln. He whined the entire time he was reading it. It was "sooooo booorrrrinnnngggg". I decided to liven it up for him by taking he and his brother to the birth place of Abraham Lincoln in Kentucky.

On the way there we noticed row upon row of cars lining the road. We weren't sure what was going on until we heard on the radio that it was the funeral procession of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthias N. Hanson who had been killed in Afghanistan. We pulled our car over and talked about the fallen soldier while we waited for the funeral procession to come by. It was coming from Fort Knox and was going by Hanson's high school where he had graduated only two years before and then was preceding on to the funeral home. It was a bitterly cold February day and yet all of the roads were lined with people standing outside their cars, tears streaming down their faces while they waved flags, all to honor this poor boy who had given his life for us.
I couldn't quit thinking about him and his sacrifice. Not just his sacrifice but the huge sacrifice of his mother and father, friends and loved ones. He was just a boy and now he is gone.

I just wanted to take a moment and thank Marine Lance Cpl. Matthias N. Hanson and I hope as you are reading this you will take a moment to thank him too. Remember him and so many like him who were playing on the football field only two years ago and now have lost their lives on the battle field. Remember his mother who has lost that fair haired child who could always make her smile, the boy she tucked into bed everynight and for whom she would have given her life to protect. Just as he has now given his life to protect hers and ours.

Abraham Lincoln's boyhood home may or may not have made the biography come to life for my ten year old. But I hope neither of my children will ever forget watching that silent procession of police vehicles, fire engines, flag draped cars and the hearse bearing that soldier's body. I hope they will remember it with pride, gratefullness and thankfullness. God bless you Matthias and may you rest in peace.