Local Marine Remembered

Thursday, September 13th 2007, 8:22 pm

By: News On 6

PAULS VALLEY, Okla. (AP) -- Hundreds packed a Pauls Valley Church on Thursday to remember a fallen Marine who joined the military because he wanted to help others. Cpl. Bryan J. Scripsick was one of four Marines who were killed by a suicide bomber in Al Anbar Province in Iraq on Sept. 6. The Marines were assigned to 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force based in Camp
Pendleton, Calif.

The 22-year-old Scripsick joined the Marines just a few months after he graduated from Pauls Valley High School in 2004. He was serving the last few months of his second tour in Iraq when he died.

"I always wondered how Bryan could be a Marine," the Rev. Michael Vaught, of St. Catherine of Siena Church said. "But I think he joined the Marines because he wanted to help people. I believe the circumstances of his death prevented the deaths of a
whole bunch of people in the marketplace where the bomber was trying to get to. A whole lot of women and children are alive today because of what Bryan did."

Vaught encouraged people at the funeral to show compassion and work to improve the world around them.

"We need to apologize to Bryan," Vaught said. "Part of the reason he died is because we are too lazy. We've created a world where this could happen."

Outside the First United Methodist Church of Pauls Valley where the funeral was held, hundreds of residents, including school children and their teachers, lined the streets with red, white and blue balloons or flags as the funeral procession traveled through
town.

At Mount Olivet Cemetery, members of the Marine Corps honor guard carried the casket to the gravesite, then two folded up the American flag over the casket and presented it to Scripsick's parents, John and Jan, and his brother, Brett.

Scripsick was honored with a gun salute and the playing of "Taps."

His family received a Purple Heart and Certificate of Honorable Service from the secretary of the Navy awarded to Bryan Scripsick after his death.