Jack (William S.) Jackson remembered at memorial

THOMASTON - Sgt. William S. "Jack" Jackson was remembered Sunday as an avid fisherman, a voracious reader and a practical joker who "lived his life every, every minute," according to a former teacher.

Jackson, who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq on Nov. 11, was memorialized Sunday by about 400 members of the community in which he grew up. His constant smile and a seemingly lifelong desire to serve in the military were mentioned by nearly everyone who spoke at the community event, which was also attended by Gov. John Baldacci, U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Reps. Tom Allen and Mike Michaud, both D-Maine.

"He knew his calling was to be a soldier, and he did it with great pride," a fellow Maine native, Army Sgt. James O'Connell, said in a eulogy read by the Rev. Scott Townsend, pastor of Jackson's boyhood church, Calvary Baptist in Warren. O'Connell is still serving in Iraq.

O'Connell wrote that Jackson, 29, was always reading and learning, traits that led others to sense that "it seemed he knew something about everything."

He recalled how Jackson learned Arabic and how to play the pennywhistle and the ukulele when he wasn't reading books on leadership and history or biographies of great Americans.

But Jackson wasn't a bookish loner, O'Connell wrote. Jackson would talk of his love for the Maine coast -- even though he, his wife and four children had moved to Michigan -- and for sailing and fishing. Fishing, O'Connell noted, would always arise as a topic for Jackson when seafood was on the menu at the Army base where they were stationed in Iraq.

Jackson's practical jokes included setting up mousetraps around the bunk of a comrade while the comrade slept and surreptitiously jotting down outrageous diary entries -- in other soldiers' journals.

Jenny Miller, whose family was friendly with Jackson's family when both were children, later became Jackson's teacher. It was her first year of teaching, she said, and Jackson's positive, upbeat attitude -- "he was always smiling" -- made that beginning year, which can be tough on young teachers, much easier, she said.

Miller said Jackson was very religious and was not shy at saying intimate, moving prayers -- sometimes crying as he did so -- before his peers.

The tragedy of Jackson dying on the day that America honors those who have served in the military was not lost on Rev. Townsend, who had to break the news to the congregation two weeks before Sunday's memorial.

"For us," he said, "Veterans Day became Memorial Day."

From the Press Herald

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