Friends And Family Say Goodbye To Dead Soldier

ZEPHYRHILLS - Sgt. Brandon Bucknor drove 1,400 miles to say goodbye to his friend.
Bucknor, his wife, Dominique, and dozens of others gathered at Zephyrhills Municipal Airport this afternoon to greet the body of Sgt. Marcus Mathes, killed last week by a mortar attack in Baghdad.

The Bucknors drove from Fort Sill. Okla., as soon as they learned Mathes, 26, was killed.

"Me and Marcus were in different units, and we joined at different times, but we were in the Army together, so there was always that brotherhood," said Brandon Bucknor, who knew Mathes since high school.

"It's a real surreal feeling. A friend of mine is gone. You can't describe the loss and the void. It's tough, but you do what you have to do to survive."

A visitation is scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. today at Hodges Funeral Home in Dade City. The funeral will be at noon Tuesday at Calvary Assembly of God on U.S. 98 Bypass in Dade City.

Mathes' body was flown from Dover, Del., on a charter jet that landed about noon today. As a group of skydivers descended in the background, the jet rolled on the tarmac beneath an arc made by water cannons.

As his casket was lowered from the gleaming jet, Mathes' widow, Julia, 24, was comforted by family.
"I'm worried about her," said family friend Steve Michaeli. "She's too young to be a widow."

Mathes, 26, was an equipment driver with the Army. He and three others, including his close friend Mark Stone of Texas, were killed when a mortar exploded in eastern Baghdad on April 28.

His brother-in-law, Bryan Harvey, was in a nearby truck when Mathes' truck was hit, but Harvey was not injured. Harvey accompanied Mathes' body today.

Marcus and Julia Mathes were high school sweethearts who married in 2002, just two weeks after Julia graduated. She said last week that it was love at first sight.