Allan Bevington honored, laid to rest

DAUGHERTY TWP. - Twenty-two-year-old Allan Bevington's journey ended Monday atop a green hillside, under a blue sky, a distant train's whistle blowing on the cool fall wind.

His family and friends gathered under a tent before his flag-draped casket at Sylvania Hills Memorial Park. Dozens of veterans he'd never met but who felt compelled to be there for him stood at attention, many holding flags, their faces taut with emotion.

U.S. Army Sgt. Bevington's journey began Sept. 21, in brown and hot Ar Ramadi, Iraq, when he was struck by a homemade bomb, known as an improvised explosive device, which detonated 5 feet from him.

The combat engineer and six others were checking for wire used to set off the IEDs in an area known to be a hot spot. They'd had plenty of close calls in that area before, said Sgt. 1st Class Michael McGuire, the squad's commander.

Just the week prior, the enemy had dropped live mortar rounds on top of them, but no one was hurt. This time, when the squad came upon a blocked road and stopped to clear it, they weren't as lucky.

They found some pressure switch devices, started to cordon off the area, and then the explosion hit, McGuire wrote in an e-mail to The Times from Iraq. Two wound up in Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. McGuire and another were blown clear, suffering concussions and blown eardrums.

Bevington, a 2002 Beaver Falls graduate, was dead.

McGuire's grief, poured out in an e-mail to friend and Sports Illustrated writer Peter King shortly after the incident, was palpable.

"Sgt. Bevington was thought of very deeply by me and the entire platoon. This is something that I will never get over. I keep thinking, how did I survive and he did not?

"I just wanted you to know that on 21 Sept. 2006, we lost a great man and a brave man. My heart goes out to his family in the Pittsburgh area. I want him to be remembered as a son, a brother, a friend and an inspiration to everyone left behind. He is my hero and will be missed the remainder of my days."

Bevington, McGuire wrote to The Times, was the "Tip of the Spear" and "The Cutting Edge"; he had to be out front, and faced daily danger without fear.

"It's the only thing he knew or wanted," McGuire wrote, and his ability "far outshined all others."

But Bevington was also a friend and mentor to the younger guys, McGuire said. He was tough and very blunt with words - which McGuire loved.

He was a "gym rat," working out in most of his down time. And he had to look good for the ladies, McGuire joked. After injuring his hand once, he wouldn't go to the female medic until he brushed his hair and teeth. "We always gave him hell as a pretty boy," McGuire joked.

He talked a lot about his 2002 royal blue Ford Mustang. He bought it after his first Iraq tour in 2003; it had only 4,000 miles on it. He couldn't wait to see it at the end of his second tour, in November.

He kept a picture of the Mustang on his Web site. In it, four buxom Hooters girls pose on its hood. His brother, Chuck Bevington of Ellwood City, has the car. The girls, "they always found him," Chuck, 38, said last week.

Bevington also listed his interests: "girls (of course), clothes, shoes, sports, gym, military, clubs, music."

"You only live once," he wrote on his Web site, "don't be remembered for the money brought home but for the smiles and fun had."

He wrote a friend, Rachael Illar of Beaver Falls, two weeks before he died. She had written to ask whether he was OK. "I can never not be OK. I'm invincible," he said.

He hated what he was seeing, but liked what he was doing, he told others.

U.S. Army recruiter Sgt. 1st Class Edward G. Landry, 37, of Center Township recruited the popular Bevington in high school. He joined the Reserve and then went into active duty. "It was something to do with his life," Landry said. "There were not a lot of options there in Beaver Falls. ... He had no interest in college. It was a way out of Beaver Falls. ... He lived and breathed the military."

Bevington just re-enlisted for six years and wanted to make the military his career.

For his sacrifice, men who'd seen their own wars wanted to show their respect on Monday.

Ed Bernstein, 82, of Brighton Township, a B-24 gunner in southern Italy in World War II and a Vietnam veteran, stood pole straight in the fatigues of the Vietnam Veterans of America local chapter.

Warren G. Goss, 81, of Sewickley, an infantryman in the first wave on D-Day, turned his blue eyes skyward. He was with the 75 or more bikers from the Patriot Guard, a national group that attends soldiers' funerals and shields the family from potential protests.

Richard Orsen, 62, of Aliquippa, who served one tour in the infantry in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, stood near Bernstein.

"You can't help thinking it could have been one of us when we were in the service," Orsen said.

From the Beaver County Times

Related Link:
Allan Bevington, on 2nd tour of duty, killed by roadside bomb