Eric Wilkus laid to rest

As taps echoed mournfully across the Brig. Gen. William C. Doyle Veterans Memorial Cemetery yesterday, a light rain fell.

Hundreds of mourners gathered, some dressed in crisp military uniforms and others on motorcycles, waving American flags.

As each boom of the 21-gun salute echoed over the headstones, the tears flowed more freely down the cheeks of Walter and Sharon Wilkus.

Army Pfc. Eric R. Wilkus of Hamilton was buried yesterday at Arneytown with full military honors. He was the 66th soldier with ties to New Jersey to die as a result of the war in Iraq.

The 20-year-old military police officer died Christmas morning in a Landstuhl, Germany, hospital from injuries he sustained three days earlier in Iraq. He died from noncombat-related injuries 90 days before he was scheduled to return home; he had been in Iraq less than six months.

The Army is still investigating the cause of his death.

Standing near the casket after the funeral service, Hamilton Mayor Glen Gilmore expressed his grief.

"He served his country as a soldier and his community as a firefighter, and though we're all so grateful, we can't tell him that now," Gilmore said. "Our prayers are with his family each and every day."

Eric Wilkus served as a volunteer firefighter at the White Horse Fire Company and enlisted in the Army shortly after graduating from Hamilton High West in 2004.

Known as a fun-loving, smiling young man with an endless itch to learn, he was remembered by hundreds of mourners who came to pay their respects earlier yesterday at a Mass of Christian Burial.

The sorrowful sound of bagpipes and the quiet roll of a snare drum filled the air as the Somerset County Police Pipes and Drum band played while soldiers carried the casket into St. Raphael's Catholic Church on South Broad Street in Hamilton.

"Even as a young man, Eric always wanted to help. Whether at church or in the Cub Scouts, he was eager to lend a hand. Though he didn't live perfectly, he faithfully lived a life of Christ," the Rev. Jeffrey Kegley said during the service. "But no greater love has been known than to lay down one's life."

Shawn Kingston, a family friend for 25 years and co-owner of Kingston & Kemp Funeral Home, took care of the procession, an experience he said has been unlike other services because this time he was mourning, too.

"My son and Eric went to school together, we all got really close," Kingston said. "It really hits home today."

As the number of American soldiers killed in the war in Iraq climbs past 3,000, the Wilkuses said they will remain supportive, though the pain of losing their son is devastating.

"We're not going to turn into an antiwar family because our son has died. Those troops need our support, and we still believe in the cause," his father said in an interview last week. "It's hard. It's really hard. But we have to accept it."

At the service, the Patriot Guard motorcycle group showed up to make sure that no protesters disrupted the proceedings, as has happened at other soldiers' funerals, chiefly because of demonstrations by a conservative Christian group that claims that God is punishing America with military deaths because U.S. society approves of homosexuality.

The Wilkus family has requested that instead of sending flowers to their residence or the funeral home, donations be made in Eric's name to the Fisher House Foundation, 1401 Rockville Park, Suite 600, Rockville, MD 20852.

From the Times

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