Ryan McCaughn to be interred at private ceremony

MANCHESTER – Grieving family members huddled under a gray sky yesterday to watch as Marine Lance Cpl. Ryan McCaughn's body was returned in New Hampshire.

"He's home," said McCaughn's brother, Chris Merlin, who stood with his mother and other relatives as Marine Corps officers accepted the casket at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.

McCaughn, a 2005 graduate of Central High School, was killed last week in an explosion in Iraq's Al Anbar province. Relatives said the 19-year-old was fighting insurgents when a homemade bomb detonated near his vehicle.

His body was detained for several days at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Yesterday, a Marine escorted his casket on a U.S. Airways flight out of Philadelphia.

Marine Corps officers stood at the ready as the grounds crew opened the plane's cargo hold, revealing an austere wooden casket. Corps members hopped inside and crouched while draping an American flag over the casket.

Several of the officers had been through this before. At least four other New Hampshire Marines have been killed while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Asked how many times he's escorted a serviceman's casket into a hearse, one Marine said simply, "too many."

Friends and family members will gather in Manchester this weekend for a wake at the Goodwin Funeral Home at 607 Chestnut St. A funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday at the St. Anne-St. Augustin Catholic church.

Though relatives have planned a burial ceremony at the Pine Grove Cemetery on the city's south side, Merlin said the family has decided to have the body cremated.

"That was a wish he had expressed to a few people individually," Merlin said.

The family is planning to hold a private ceremony at the mausoleum later in the week, he said. The urn will rest there, near the ashes of an uncle who passed away not long ago, he said.

Family members waited more than a week for McCaughn's body to arrive in New Hampshire. Relatives spent some of that time on a retreat to Maine, where they wound up discussing the funeral arrangements.

Despite the delay, Merlin said, the family could not prepare for the sight of McCaughn's flag-draped casket.

"It's kind of like reality really hit," he said. "That he really is gone."

From the Union Leader

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