Family, Friends Help Dedicate Cherry Point Building to Fallen Marine

By Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Doug Payne
Special to American Forces Press Service

Oct. 17, 2008 - Marines, sailors, family and friends, each displaying a mixture of cheerful and solemn expressions, gathered around the fuel pump house here to honor their fallen hero Oct. 10. The ceremony honored Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Daniel McVicker by dedicating the fuel house in his name. The bulk fuel specialist was killed in 2005 while serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The unanimous theme among speakers at the event was that McVicker's personality inspired both his fellow Marines as well as his superiors.

"I went out with Dan to buy an engagement ring for my girlfriend at the time," said Marine Corps Sgt. Joseph K. Freeman, a recruiter at Indiana, Pa. "I couldn't figure out how to propose, when all of a sudden he shouted, 'I've got it!'

"He told me to get my girlfriend and meet him at Indian Beach," Freeman said. "By the time we got to the beach he had grabbed a bunch of Marines and other friends we knew and had written, 'Megan will you marry me?' with seaweed in the sand.

"That's just how Dan was," Freeman added. "If it wasn't for him, I couldn't have proposed as gloriously to my wife."

Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Linda Tierney, the fuels team leader with station fuels, said although many Marines didn't get a chance to know McVicker personally, they still were able to form a bond with the fallen Marine.

"The ceremony allowed them to meet the family and really find out who he was," Tierney said. "Now, if you ask any Marine at station fuels, they talk about him as if they were close friends."

"It amazes me to hear about all the things he did for other people and how he touched them," said Marine Corps Cpl. Jason Hopkins, a bulk fuel specialist with station fuels. "When his mother played the last voicemail she had of him on her cell phone, there wasn't a dry eye around."

After all the comments were made, Daniel's father, Mark, hung a commemorative plaque on the front of the fuel pump house. Along with his name and the dates of his birth and death was an excerpt from the Bible, Daniel 10:6. It reads: "His body was like chrysolite, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude."

Lance Cpl. Daniel McVicker, of Alliance, Ohio, was 20 when the vehicle he was driving hit a roadside bomb near Qaim, Iraq.