Thursday, November 11, 2010

Jon Collins

In honor of Veteran's Day, I thought I would take some time to talk about an amazing person who gave his life for this country. LCPL Jonathan W. Collins died in Iraq on August 8th, 2004. He was 19 years old. He was hit with a sniper riffle to the back of the head and died instantly.

I met Jon in high school, he was in my study hall class and sat next to me and the first day of study hall he kept talking to me and got us both kicked out! Needless to say that was my first and only time being kicked out of class. Jon and I became very good friends throughout high school and even went to Prom together. He had this infectious smile and laugh and to this day was one of the few people who could cheer me up and make me laugh. I remember one night I was working on a project and having a bad day and he came to my house to bring me roses, just to cheer me up. He also did some crazy things like hang out of my sunroof window in a santa outfit (don't ask why...). He was passionate about being a Marine and knew that it was his calling. The last time I saw Jon was over New Years Eve (Dec 31st 2003) and he couldn't stop talking about his great experiences with the Marines.

I know that Jon watches over me and comes into my dreams when I need a pick me up and so today I want to say Thank you to my friend and that I still miss him and his spirit lives on.



P.S. The picture on the right is a "typical" Jon picture!!!

2 comments:

  1. I wish I could have met him. I remember how much you talked about him at IWU - he surely was an amazing person. I also remember how hard his death was on you. I have thought about him on Veteran's Day every year since then.

    I think this was a wonderful post.

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  2. I miss John. He was that crazy person that everyone wanted to be friends with. He was a great guy, hope he is in a better place now.

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