Shane Adcock laid to rest

His parents said it came as no surprise when he joined the military after graduating in 2003 from Longwood University in Farmville, Va. Adcock's grandfather was a Navy veteran who shared military stories with him and took him to visit the naval base in Norfolk.

Adcock was an adventure seeker and enjoyed rock climbing, hiking, surfing and kayaking, family members said.

"He used to always tell me, 'You know Mom, I gotta live life on the edge,' " Vera Adcock said. "And in all of it, he kept God at the center of his attention."

His first deployment was to Afghanistan in 2004. At a welcome-home party in the middle of that deployment, he met the woman who would become his wife, Jennifer Skeele, a doctoral student in physical therapy at Duke University. When he returned to Afghanistan, they kept in touch via e-mail and talked on the phone nearly every day.

"He was the most upstanding, moral person you've ever met," Skeele said. "He was caring and compassionate. When he was in Afghanistan, he had more patience and joy in his life than people I know walking around every day in a free country. He was so calm and collected that it blew me away."

They were married in Hawaii in June. Nearly two months later, he was deployed to Iraq.

Adcock loved the military and was planning to make a career of it. He also wanted to start a family, his wife said.

"I think it's clear for all the soldiers that they love what they're doing, but they just miss their loved ones," she said. "It clarifies what we take for granted every day. He missed the simple things like waking up next to his wife. That's all he wanted to do. . . . My heart goes out to these men. We have no concept of what they go through every day."

From the Washington Post

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