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Sharpsville honors soldier killed in Afghanistan
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Mourners packed the church to honor U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. David Wallace III.
It was frigid Thursday morning, but the sky was blue enough to set off the colors of the American flag hanging from a firetruck ladder over East State Street in Hermitage, Pa.
From Sharpsville, Pa., a police-escorted procession made its way slowly up the road, passing under the flag and turning into the parking lot of the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer.
There was another American flag in that procession — this one carefully draped over the coffin of 25-year-old U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. David Wallace III.
The hearse pulled up to the door of the church, while mourners filed into the parking lot. Wallace’s fellow Marines were waiting, six of them, to take him into the church where family and friends had already begun to gather.
It was, said the Rev. Dennis Blauser, who officiated at the service, a gathering to welcome Wallace home to his community and his church family. This welcome was also a time to say goodbye, he added, but when Wallace died Jan. 27, the victim of a roadside mine explosion in Afghanistan, he did not die alone.
“The Lord himself came and said, ‘David, welcome home,” the Rev. Mr. Blauser told the mourners, who were packed in to almost standing room only.
The service was a culmination of honors and remembrance by the community in Sharpsville, which began at 10:30 a.m. at Donaldson-Mohney Funeral Home on Main Street there. Before making its way to the church, the procession accompanied him on his last trip through the town, up Main Street and past the field where he played high school football.
Students lined up with flags to show their gratitude for his service to the country, and townspeople who knew the route stood along it to honor him.
At the church, an uncle and aunts remembered his antics as a child, his sense of humor and his love of a joke.
They remembered his compassion and his wish to protect his father when he was sick, adding that he lost his father, David Wallace, when he was 9.
His brother, Steven, two years younger, stood at the podium in his Navy uniform. “I ask everyone here to keep him in your hearts,” he said. “Because I don’t ever want him to be alone. That’s all I ask.”
At one point during the service, Mr. Blauser asked every member and veteran of the armed forces in the congregation to stand. Mr. Blauser, himself a Navy veteran, led them in a salute to Wallace.
Wallace, whose mother is Carol Wallace of Sharpsville, graduated from Sharpsville High School in 2002. He was an athlete, participating in wrestling and football.
He was assigned to the 2nd combat Engineer Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
In North Carolina, he leaves a wife, Erica, of Jacksonville, a 5-year-old stepson and a 2-year-old daughter.
He was being taken from Sharpsville to the Jones Funeral Home in Jacksonville, and his burial will be Saturday in Onslow County Cemetery, Jacksonville.