Johnny Craver laid to rest

McKINNEY — Army 2nd Lt. Johnny Craver’s wife, Natalie, had been planning a funeral ever since he went on active duty, she told several hundred people gathered Monday to honor him.

She believed he would return, but she couldn’t stop thinking about how she would conduct his service if he didn’t.

“I think it was God’s way of preparing me for this,” she said.

Craver, 37, left Fort Hood for Iraq on July 15 and was killed in action Oct. 13. He was a 20-year career Army officer and a Ranger instructor.

During the service, his wife, his daughter and several friends described a man who loved his family, his comrades and his country.

Craver’s mother, Phyllis Broomfield of Aubrey, is a sergeant in the Denton County Jail. The large sanctuary overflowed with her co-workers in uniform, as well as uniformed law enforcement officers from numerous agencies and representatives of every branch of the military.
Natalie Craver of Harker Heights, with her two brothers at her side, told the crowd that her husband had called home the day before he was killed by an improvised explosive device that also killed two other soldiers. He was honest with her, she said. He told her he was in a very hostile place.

“He swore to me the day he left that he was coming home. But he is holding my hand today, helping me get through this,” she said.

Craver was buried with full military honors in a small family plot on a ranch belonging to his father, Kenneth Craver. The lengthy cortege traveled two hours north and east from McKinney to the field east of Leonard. During the solemn military ceremony, the soft sounds of more than two dozen flags whipping in the wind were broken by a 21-gun salute.

A McKinney Fire Department ladder truck hoisted an American flag high above the procession as it left the Stonebridge United Methodist Church. About two dozen members of the Patriot Guard Riders formed an honor guard for the family.

Vietnam veteran Gary Hill, one of the Patriot Guard members, said the guard was formed when a group of veterans who ride motorcycles saw that families were being harassed by anti-war protesters at their loved ones’ funerals.

The group is about 90 percent veterans, he said, and they form a shield of flags between the family and demonstrators.

There were no protesters at the funeral, but Hill said the Patriot Guard, which is 60,000 strong nationwide, is there to make sure that military families don’t bury their sons unnoticed.

Police blocked traffic at major intersections all along the drive to the burial site. In smaller towns like Anna and Leonard, firefighters stood at attention beside their engines and townspeople lined the roads with their hands on their hearts in respect for the dead soldier.

Staff Sgt. Josh Staugler said Craver cared about his soldiers and put them first.

“I wanted to be just like him. He taught me how to be a soldier,” Staugler said.

Second Lt. Andy Smith said Craver motivated soldiers who knew him, by example.

“He’s the best soldier I’ve ever known,” Smith told the congregation.

Then he looked down at the flag-draped casket and spoke to his friend.

“I’m a better man for having known you,” he said.

From the Dallas Morning News

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