Farewell to an Iraq war hero

Tuesday, August 16, 2005
By M.R. KROPKOASSOCIATED PRESS

One friend told mourners Monday about sipping beers with Edward Schroeder II and talking about Ohio State University football on the couch at their fraternity house before Schroeder became a Marine.

Another friend in a Christian outreach program with Schroeder as teenagers said he was the type of person that everyone should strive to be.

The funeral for Lance Cpl. Schroeder, 23, a former Maplewood resident, started a second week of multiple services for 16 Ohio-based Marines killed in Iraq in the past month. Fourteen of them, including Schroeder, who died in a roadside explosion, were from units of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, based in Brook Park, Ohio. Schroeder's unit was Lima Company, based in Columbus. Ohio.

"Augie was the greatest friend a guy like me could have ever asked for. With Augie, there were no enemies - only friends. He was put on Earth for a reason. Augie was, is and always will be my hero," fraternity brother Brian Cox said at Schroeder's funeral in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
Speaking to about 400 people at the Church of the Saviour United Methodist Church, the Rev. Charles Yoost said Schroeder's life touched many people.

"It doesn't seem possible to believe that Augie is gone," Yoost said. "His brief life made some of us more thoughtful people."

Yoost urged people who came to the service to "pray for peace on Earth, the peace that we believe is possible on Earth as it is in heaven."

Among those attending the funeral were Ron and Vicki Carter and their daughter, Logan, 24. The family drove from Maplewood, where they were friends with the Schroeder family and went to church with them when they lived there.

Logan Carter, who now lives in New York City, said she was friends with Schroeder when they were in a Christian outreach program.

"It's extraordinarily devastating. Augie is a representation of what we all should be," she said.
Logan Carter said she feels news reports of so many Marines from an Ohio battalion killed in Iraq has had a profound effect on people her age.

"It brought the truth of the situation that this country faces close to home. So many of us - my peers - try to grapple with our relationship with our country and its politics, so when someone we know dies, it's a shock," Carter said.

Edward Schroeder spent his preschool years in China and then finished school in Maplewood. His family moved to Cleveland after he graduated from high school, and he started classes at Ohio State.

The young Marine went to Iraq filled with optimism about the mission, but he gradually became disillusioned with the war's progress, his father, Paul Schroeder, has said. His parents did not speak at the service.

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