Tributes to Sacrifice, Dedication

Soldier, Marine Fatally Wounded in Iraq Are Laid to Rest

Keith Wallace, right, at the funeral for his son Army Cpl. Matt Wallace, who died July 21 after an explosion in Baghdad. (By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post)

A motorcade led the funeral procession for Cpl. Matt Wallace at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday. Six uniformed men carried Wallace's black coffin to a gravesite in Section 60, where service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are laid to rest.

During the service, Army chaplain Lane Creamer spoke solemnly of sacrifice: "For the soldier, it is always duty, honor, country." Soldiers then fired a three-volley salute while a bugler stood among the rows of white headstones and played taps.

It was a fitting end for a man who wanted nothing more than to be a "soldier man" his whole life.

Wallace, 22, of St. Mary's County, died July 21 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany of burns sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle in Baghdad on July 16.

He was assigned to the Army's 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Hood, Tex.

As a child growing up in St. Mary's County, Wallace played with empty toilet paper rolls and clothes hangers, pretending they were toy guns. Family members said he went through a "self-discovery phase" and dropped out of Great Mills High School after his sophomore year. In 2001, he earned a General Educational Development diploma, and he joined the Army in 2004.

Wallace was 5 feet 10 inches tall and 135 pounds of "pure muscle," his sister Abigail said. He played soccer and dabbled in karate. In Iraq, he trained on every weapons system possible, becoming a highly skilled soldier, she said.

Wallace's mother, Mary, said he sounded weary the last time they spoke on the phone. "They were just working and working with little relief," she said. But that was where he wanted to be, she added, her voice perking up. "He felt like he was doing what God thought he should do."

Wallace is also survived by his father, Keith, and siblings Jessica and Micah.

A light breeze blew through the cemetery about 3 p.m. yesterday when mourners gathered at a gravesite next to Wallace's to honor Marine Lance Cpl. Geofrey Robert Cayer. The crowd included U.S. Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who went to pay respects to the man from Fitchburg, Mass. Military officials said Cayer, 20, died July 18 in a nonhostile incident in Iraq's Anbar province. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Cayer graduated from Fitchburg High School in 2004, where he played football and tennis. Principal Richard Masciarelli remembered him as focused and quiet. But when Cayer returned to visit the school after basic training, he appeared to be a different person, Masciarelli said. "He had really come into his own and was confident in himself as a young man," he said.

Friends recalled Cayer as a great observer with a dry wit. "He always found humor in the oddest places," said Chris LeBlanc, a family friend. "He would watch everything going on, and just when you were least expecting it, he'd say something funny."

Those who knew Cayer spoke of a characteristic resolve. "He was there to do a job, and he took it very seriously," LeBlanc said. "He was so happy to be a Marine."

Cayer was scheduled to return from Iraq this month, according to news reports.

When Cayer's service ended, Kerry and Kennedy offered condolences to his parents, Joan and Robert, and siblings, Charles, Alex and Abbigail.

Kerry placed a bouquet of white flowers on Cayer's coffin and made the sign of the cross before walking back to his car, past the long rows of tombstones at Section 60.

Wallace and Cayer are the 254th and 255th service members killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom to be buried at Arlington.