Legion post in Craig takes heroic name
CRAIG – Each morning her husband spent in Iraq, Sherri Lawton walked out to the fence on the family ranch in Hayden and placed a miniature American flag on a fence post – one flag for every day Mark Lawton was gone.The day she learned about the ambush that killed him, she went out and took down the tiny flag – at first, she had thought there was no reason to continue. Then she realized she couldn’t stop.
For hundreds of days, the widow continued to put out flags and yellow ribbons for the soldiers who remained overseas and only stopped after the men and women of the 244th Engineer Battalion – all but one of them – finally came home.
Monday morning – nearly three years after her husband was killed – she went down the county road near the fields where her husband used to run track and ride horses, near the place where he worked at the coal mine, past the Loaf ‘N Jug, toward the new American Legion post.
For more than a mile, the county road was lined with American flags. This time, the flags were all for Mark Lawton.
This time, the unit was there to meet her.
“Mark Anthony Evans-Lawton American Legion Post 62,” she read as she arrived at the freshly painted building. Then she walked into the arms of one of the last men to see her husband alive.
“It’s good to see you,” she said as she pressed her face into the uniform of Sgt. Kenneth Favorite of Grand Junction. “I’m glad you came.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it,” he said.
Scenes they can’t forget
Hundreds of residents from throughout northern Colorado joined dozens of soldiers from around the country as they assembled to remember the first Army reservist from Colorado killed during the war in Iraq, in the place that now bears his name.
Inside the wood-paneled building in the small town where he graduated from high school, Lawton’s comrades looked at the pictures of him in Iraq and thought back to the scenes they can’t forget.
They remembered the push-ups they endured beneath his barking commands – the punishments that, more often than not, they now realize made them better soldiers. Under the pictures of the man in the cowboy hat they still call “an absolute hard-ass,” they told stories of how they saw the 41-year-old former Marine late at night, writing letters to his wife.
They talked about his choice to go to Iraq – he could have gotten out of the assignment, but as a veteran of the first Gulf War, he felt he had something to teach.
“As more soldiers die in Iraq, I think sometimes individuals can get lost in the numbers,” said Sgt. First Class Dianna Leinberger. “And he’s still an individual – with a wife and two kids. And a community. He’s not just a number.”
‘Still in our hearts’
Most of the members of the 244th took the day off from their civilian jobs throughout Colorado – where they work as carpenters, police officers, oil field workers, students and corporate middle managers – and drove for hours with their families to support the family they promised not to leave behind.
Some still carry shrapnel from the wounds of the attack that took Lawton’s life. A few are already back in Iraq.
“It’s a great honor to show that he’s still in our hearts – and that his loss is still a loss,” said Leinberger, Lawton’s platoon commander, who flew in from Alaska to lead the color guard at the ceremony.
As part of the dedication, soldiers from Fort Carson brought heavy equipment used by the engineers in Iraq, the Colorado Air National Guard provided a helicopter flyover, and more than 60 motorcyclists from the American Legion Riders stopped by on their way from Indianapolis to Salt Lake City – as part of a ride to raise money for the Legacy Fund, a scholarship for children of fallen soldiers.
“You’re a good post,” said Ralph Bozella, Colorado commander of the American Legion, during the dedication. “Now you’re going to have to be a better post. Because you’re going to have to live up to that name.”
At a picnic lunch outside, Robb Smith, who was Lawton’s first sergeant in Iraq, looked at Lawton’s two boys – Tanner, 4, and Dustin, 7 – and then looked at his own little girl.
“You kind of adopt those kids, too,” he said. “In your mind and in your heart. Every father has to deal with that. It is really tough.”
While the troops were stationed overseas, Sherri Lawton continued to write them and send care packages. Before she and her family left Colorado to move to Missouri last year, she had one more package to send.
When the envelopes arrived at the soldiers’ homes, they contained a tattered yellow ribbon, and a small, faded American flag that once flew over a fence post.
“It’s all weathered, it’s a bit worn,” Robb Smith said. “But it means more than anything else.”
How to help
• To contribute to the fund for scholarships of fallen service members, send donations to American Legion National Headquarters, attn: Legacy Fund. 700 N. Pennsylvania Indianapolis, Id. 46204
sheelerj@rockymountainnews.com or 303-954-2561.
I often hunt in the Craig area. It is a tough land. It grows tough men. Men tough enough to publicly shed tears for fallen brothers.
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