Friends recall Jeremy Monroe

Maybe when they lay Jeremy Monroe in the ground on Monday morning Doug Lekang will believe his friend is gone.

Today, he simply can't. Today, it doesn't seem possible.

Wasn't it just the glorious summer days of August, and wasn't his friend the Marine just back home from Afghanistan? Hadn't he just survived the war he said was hell on earth?

“I talked to him a lot while he was back, and I guess me and my family weren't that worried,” Lekang said Friday from Chinook. “We just had a sense that he was coming back.”

Jeremy Monroe is coming home in a flag-draped coffin. He'll be buried Monday in Dodson, shortly after a 10 a.m. memorial service at Chinook High School.

Doug Lekang will be there, and maybe then his heart will believe his eyes.

“I'm extremely proud of him and have the utmost respect for what he did for me and what he did for the country,” Lekang said. “I did not want to see it come to this.”

Jeremy Scott Sandvick Monroe was 20 when he died Sunday in the violent Iraqi province of Anbar. He was shot in the head by a sniper and died instantly, the Marine Corps told his parents.

Monroe, who grew up in Darby then moved to Chinook to live with his mother during his high school years, had already done a tour of duty in Afghanistan. He'd enlisted in the Marines after high school to serve his country, and while he loved being a Marine, he was not enamored by what he saw of war.

“He told me more than a couple of times that war really is hell, just like they say,” childhood friend Jim Paul said Friday. “He said it's a horrible thing, very messy, very disturbing. He didn't want to go back. It had taken a pretty heavy toll on him.”

Still, Monroe loved being a Marine. His misgivings about war likely made him a better Marine - more competent, more understanding, more willing to see the world as the very gray place that it is, his friends said.

“What I found about him was that he was still the same funny guy he'd been before, but that he'd developed a very serious side, too,” Lekang said.

He'd always been funny. Little Jeremy Monroe was quick with a joke, rich with the lighter side of life.

“I met him in the fifth grade and he used to crack me up even back then,” said Paul, who grew up in Darby with Monroe. “We'd play king of the hill, hide and seek, football. I'd help him with his chores after school, and sometimes we'd go up to my house after that.”

The boys lived up Tin Cup Road on the edge of town, and they grew closer over time until Monroe moved away to Chinook.

“He was the sort of guy, if you were having a bad day, he'd be there for you,” Paul said. “It didn't matter what sort of day he was having. He'd be there to sort of take care of you.”

Paul and Lekang used many of the same words to describe their friend - honest, decent, trustworthy, willing to do anything for a friend. Those same qualities came through in the Marines, they said, especially when he became a team leader.

“I know one of the things that worried him most about Iraq was that he would have a group of guys following him and depending on him,” Lekang said. “I don't think he was worried so much for himself, but for those guys. He felt like their lives were in his hand.”

During his return to Montana this past summer, Monroe impressed on friends like Lekang the importance of living each day to its fullest.

“He wanted me to understand how important this day was for us,” Lekang recalled. “I think the fact that he'd been to war, the fact that everything was so in your face there, this idea that you could be killed at any minute, it really got to him.”

Ominously, Monroe even made plans for his own burial while he was home this last time.

“He was pretty clear that he felt he was doing his duty, but it was also clear that he didn't really want to go back to war,” Paul said. “He said it was something nobody could really feel good about doing.”

Earlier this week, Monroe's little brother came over to Lekang's house and told him the news. He heard the air flow from his own lungs as the boy spoke, felt he might not breathe again.

“You really can't believe those words, you know?” he said.

Paul felt an immediate, immense hole in his heart.

“You go through a lot of friends in your life, and only a few of them will be the ones that hang with you forever,” he said. “He was one of those friends for me. We've all lost a really good man. I've had a hard time dealing with it, and I think I always will.”

From the Missoulian

Related Link:
Jeremy S. Sandvick Monroe slain by sniper on 2nd tour of duty