Friends, family remember Kristofer Walker and George Obourn

CREVE COEUR, Ill. — Kristofer Walker and George Obourn Jr., both 20, were almost inseparable.

As high school students, their friendship revolved around marching band, playing video games together and eating at Monical's Pizza, up the street from East Peoria High School.

Together they acted on their dream of joining the Army as Cavalry Scouts, wanting to do their part after Sept. 11. Out of school they entered a "buddy" system that would keep them together for a year through basic training. In Iraq they served in the same squadron.

Their lives together ended on Oct. 2, when Walker was killed after his Humvee hit a roadside bomb in Taji, near Baghdad. Two days later, Obourn followed his friend, killed while clearing a building of insurgents in the same town.

This weekend, Creve Coeur will bury the two young soldiers: Walker on Friday and Obourn on Saturday. News of the buddies' double death and its timing hit this industrial community hard.

"It was bizarre, eerie," says East Peoria High School Principal Paul Whittington. "Somebody's got a plan bigger than me. ... You wonder if one (of the men) would be totally miserable without the other."

The event was commemorated in ways big and small by residents of Creve Coeur and its larger neighbor East Peoria, where a frosty wind and views of the Caterpillar factory on the Illinois River make the Iraq war feel very far away.

"It's kind of a reality check," says Erick Hutchinson, 18, a senior at East Peoria. "You watch it on television, but it hits close to home when it hits someone who went to your high school."

At East Peoria High School stands printed posters of the friends, taken from a family snapshot. The school Booster Club posters show two young men standing shoulder to shoulder in dress uniforms.

The community paid tribute to the friends at last week's Friday night homecoming football game. Two marching band hats, each decorated with a large plume, were retired and given to members of each family. A former band member played taps.

Then the entire stadium, usually alive with roars and chants, was asked for quiet, Whittington says.

"The silence was deafening," he says.

In Creve Coeur, Mayor Wayne Baker ordered flags at the hilltop war memorial flown at half-staff and two wreaths placed nearby. The wreaths will remain until the names of Obourn and Walker, who both held the rank of specialist, can be added to a list of three other village sons who died in Iraq, Baker says.

The town sent a police escort to St. Louis to escort the caskets to East Peoria. The high school told its 1,200 students they could leave classes Friday to attend Walker's funeral procession.

At Minnie's Kitchen, a family restaurant on Creve Coeur's main boulevard, everyone drinking coffee Thursday afternoon knew Walker, Obourn or their families.

"It made me sad because we lost a nephew there, too," said Yvonne Hosbrough, who owns the restaurant with her husband.

Lisa Montgomery, the restaurant manager, said one of her waitresses has a son who is headed to Iraq on Friday.

"She was visibly upset" when she heard about Walker and Obourn, Montgomery says. "She didn't break down because she was at work when she found out. She talks about it all the time."

Even people who didn't know the young men personally were affected by their story.

Their deaths brought the war a lot closer, says John Meek, who owns Midwestern Firearms in East Peoria. "It's harder to take when it's right here at home," Meek says.

Walker and Obourn met in elementary school but didn't become fast friends until they joined the marching band in their freshman year of high school. After that, they were "always together," Whittington says.

Robin Goff, a school dean who taught both boys in science class, said their personalities complemented each other. Walker was quiet in class and would blush when she complimented him on his marching band performance. Obourn was more outgoing. She recalled him standing up for a disabled classmate when others taunted him.

"He always wanted to be in the Army," says Walker's father, Kevin Walker, 48, a manager for a highway contractor.

Obourn first talked seriously about the Army in his junior year of high school, says his father, George Obourn Sr.

"He had a plan," Obourn says. "Join the Army, get the GI Bill. Get a degree in criminology and get into law enforcement. He felt he wanted to do his part for the country after 9/11. He knew what the risks were."

In August 2004, the families met at the recruiting station for the young men's farewell before basic training. After basic, Walker and Obourn entered the 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. They flew to Iraq in December 2005.

"I think he felt he was going to make a difference and change things" in Iraq, Kevin Walker says. "The patrols that they did were always combined patrols with the Iraqi army."

"I'd ask him, 'Are they getting any better?' He'd say, 'Oh, yeah, they're getting better,' " Walker says. "OK, then I guess you're doing some good."

Chad Walker says his brother talked about patrolling villages north of Baghdad where people would invite the troops in for tea, and of other villages that were not so nice. He didn't go into details.

Neither would Obourn. Back in March, two of Obourn's squad members were killed "right in front of him," his father says. "He didn't talk about it that much. He put on a face. Looking at photos while he was on leave, he'd kind of pause and say, 'Well, he's gone now,' and move on."

George Obourn Sr. said he is devastated by his son's death but also proud. "Every father wants your boy to grow up to be a hero, but not like this."

From USA Today

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