Guard Crash Victims Honored at Service
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Master Sgt. Michael Lane, in his tuxedo, beamed from his wedding portrait. Tech Sgt. Edwin Richardson’s name glistened on a trophy won by a baseball team he coached.
Golf clubs, a purple teddy bear, a Harley Davidson beer mug and a yellow firefighter’s helmet also were displayed at a memorial service in Virginia Beach for 18 Virginia National Guard airmen who died March 3 in a military plane crash in Georgia.
They died while “doing something they believed in to their core: serving their country, their state and their communities,” Gov. Jim Gilmore told 3,500 family members, service personnel and others at the nondenominational Rock Church.
In a letter read during the service, President Bush praised the airmen as patriots. “We all mourn together at their sudden and unexpected loss,” Bush wrote.
After the ceremony, mourners filed outside to watch four Air National Guard F-16s fly above the church in “missing man” formation. One jet peeled away from the others to symbolize the fallen men.
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