– “The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.” – Douglas MacArthur
– “God spoke liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it.” – Daniel Webster
Craig Derosia returned to Albany from military service in Germany this week not just to see his parents, but to embrace them as his best friend is buried.
The 24-year-old Dougherty High School graduate and his parents, Doug and Denise Derosia of Albany, will bid farewell to Marine Sgt. Christopher L. Poole during a funeral service Friday. Mr. Poole, 22, was killed last Thursday with three other Marines on Sept. 6 in Al Anbar province in Iraq.
A communications specialist, Mr. Poole died after an explosion that occurred when a suicide bomber drove a vehicle into a security checkpoint, his family said.
“I lost my best friend,” Craig Derosia said Wednesday, trying to keep his emotion in check. “I’m not doing very good.”
Mr. Poole lived in Albany with his mother and stepfather, Donna and Robert Hunsicker, from 1992 to 2003, when the family moved to Mount Dora, Fla. Christopher Poole attended Lincoln Elementary and Highland Middle magnet schools in Dougherty County, then Worth County High.
Christopher and Craig became best friends as fellow 8-year-old Cub Scouts at Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany. Craig Derosia and Denise Derosia vividly recall young Christopher’s declaration, “I’m going to be a Marine,” as he admiringly watched the military personnel do their jobs at MCLB.
As teens, the boys pledged to join the military together, but Craig opted for the U.S. Army, in which he is based in Texas and serves as an E-5.
“We were pretty much inseparable,” Craig Derosia said Wednesday. “We joined the wrestling team. We were in Boy Scouts. We pretty much did everything together.
“We were just two happy-go-lucky who loved sports and loved our country. One day we decided the two of us were going to serve our country, and we never looked back. I have no regret ever doing it. Even right now. And right now, I miss him a lot.”
Craig Derosia says he missed an opportunity recently to rendezvous with his best friend when Mr. Poole was about three hours away in Germany in transit to Iraq. But he’s not beating himself over it.
“I just hope that anybody who ever knew him, that they think about the good times, and not his passing. That’s what he’d want, and that’s what I’m trying to do,” he said.
Mr. Poole was based in Camp Pendleton, Calif., where he was assigned to the 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion When he talked to family and friends from Iraq, he talked about the heat, his boredom, and the increasing hostility of Iraqi citizens, and his desire to leave the country. His primary military duty was to repair radios and communications lines.
In an interview Wednesday from Mount Dora, where Christopher’s mother was waiting for the arrival of her son’s body from Dover, Del., Mrs. Hunsicker said that her son was in ROTC in high school, and nearly became an Eagle Scout.
“Three days after he graduated from high school, he was on the bus to boot camp,” Mrs. Hunsicker said. “He was so proud to be a Marine, and so proud to make the corporal. When he called to tell me, you could hear the pride in his voice.
“He was very fun-loving. He had numerous friends up there (in Albany). I’m hearing from them all now. I am extremely proud of the life he lived for what he did for his country.
Mr. Poole was born on the Fourth of July. In April, just before leaving for Iraq, he asked his high-school sweetheart to marry him. She said “yes,” and he was to return home in November. Then, Mrs. Hunsicker got a knock on her door on a day that started ordinarily, but turned out to be the “worst of my life.”
Mrs. Hunsicker had talked to her son five days earlier.
On Friday, Mr. Poole will be buried with his dress blues uniform at Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell.
Mr. Poole was preceded in death by his father. In addition to his mother and stepfather, he is survived by five brothers, Jeffery Ebaugh, Joshua Ebaugh, Scott Hunsicker, Mike Hunsicker, and Dustin Hunsicker; and two sisters, Heidi Ethridge and Bobbie Jo Hunsicker.
