Family celebrates Marine's life
DeForest soldier remembered for happy demeanor
By SARAH CARR
Posted: Nov. 20, 2004

DeForest - Lance Cpl. Shane O'Donnell only stopped smiling in his sleep.

The 24-year-old Marine who died Nov. 8 in Iraq was remembered for many things during his funeral Saturday. But his friends, family members and fellow Marines kept returning to his smile.

"It seemed the only time he couldn't give you a smile was when he was sleeping," wrote his sergeant in a letter read aloud at the service. "He was the kind of young man who you could just look at and think, 'Your parents must be proud.' "

The dignified and somber touches of a military funeral blended with the celebration of a young man's life, full of friends, sports and song.

"I want this to be a celebration," said O'Donnell's brother, Eric, who crumpled up his prepared notes and tossed them away before speaking. "Not a celebration of his death, but a celebration of the way he lived."

The pieces of his life were vividly on display during the service at DeForest Area High School - Gov. Jim Doyle was in attendance - where dozens of photos showed off his smiling face, and several speakers remembered the tastes and habits of their friend.

He liked crossbow hunting, Legos, Sprecher root beer, baseball and keeping a good stereo system in his truck. He disliked vegetables, coffee and cooking for himself.

O'Donnell graduated from DeForest Area High School in 1999. There, he played baseball, football and sang in the school's choir. He later worked at the high school as a plumber with Hooper Corp. and earned a degree from Madison Area Technical College this year.

His friends and brothers recalled dodging cars when sledding down icy slopes into the street, playing hundreds of games of flashlight tag after dark, and the bumper sticker on his truck that read, "You only have the rights you are willing to fight for."

O'Donnell caught some of his friends and family members off-guard when he announced his intention to join the military. But he told everyone, "It will make me a better person, and it's what God wants me to do," his friends recalled.

He was a member of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment . At the funeral service, O'Donnell posthumously received a Purple Heart "for wounds received in action on Nov. 8 , resulting in his death."

A letter from O'Donnell's commanding officer read at the funeral noted that the daily existence of the Marines' lives defies description.

You need "to picture the most physically demanding day you've had in your life and double it," he wrote, adding that Marines live with the reality that they could face death or be called on to destroy at a moment's notice.

"For all the bluster and machoism, all they want to do is make a difference in a world gone mad," he wrote.

After the remarks, a video image of a stern-faced O'Donnell in uniform faded into dozens of images of a smiling young man. A boy with a widow's peak blew out birthday candles, stuck out his tongue and carved pumpkins. A young man with a bald head showed off his fishing and hunting triumphs and slurped down a milkshake.

Later, people sang along to "Days of Elijah," one of O'Donnell's favorite songs for worship. That celebratory and cheerful song was directly followed by the more mournful, piercing tones of bagpipes and a procession that carried the flag-draped coffin out of the high school gymnasium to the cemetery.

The mixture of somberness and festivities seemed fitting to remember a Marine who was recalled as emotional and goofy, smiling and deep.

"If you talked to him for more than a minute, you liked him," Eric O'Donnell said. "If you didn't, you really had something wrong with you."

Shane O'Donnell died a hero. But more importantly, his friends and family recalled, he lived as one.

Survivors include his parents, three brothers and a sister.