Matthew Clark laid to rest

Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew W. Clark, who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq last week, was laid to rest today following a funeral Mass at the Cathedral Basilica.

Seven Marines stood outside the basilica on L indell Boulevard, 50 Knights of Columbus lined the steps and hundreds came to pay their respects to Clark, 22, who was driving a vehicle in Iraq last Thursday when the bomb exploded.

Nearly two dozen priests, including Archbishop Raymond Burke, took part in the funeral Mass.

Monsignor Vernon Gardin, who gave the homily, said Clark had e-mailed him a personal manifesto of his life a month before he died.

Gardin quoted Clark as saying in that message:

“I am an American. These are my people. I will always be more like them than Britain or French men. I will forever desire to protect them.”

A 2002 graduate of Ladue Horton Watkins High School, Clark had followed his father into the Marine Corps. In Clark's senior year, his father died of lung cancer.

When filling out his emergency contact form before leaving for Iraq three months ago, Clark, an only child, wrote that he wanted Gardin present if his mother had to hear the news that he had been killed. Gardin accompanied three Marines to break the sad news last week.

Clark had met Gardin when he was a priest at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Clayton. He is now the vicar general for the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

"I buried his father," Gardin said.

From the Dispatch

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