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- The People Behind The Sacrifice
Army Staff Sgt. Shamus O. Goare
Died June 28, 2005 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom
29, of Danville, Ohio; assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), Hunter Army Airfield, Ga.; killed June 28 when an MH-47 Chinook helicopter crashed while ferrying personnel to a battle against militants in eastern Afghanistan.
Hot rods lead funeral procession for fallen soldier
Associated Press
DANVILLE, Ohio — Six vintage hot rods led a funeral procession through streets of town as a tribute to one of the passions of a soldier killed in helicopter crash in Afghanistan with 15 other servicemen.
About 500 people at the funeral Tuesday drove behind the hot rods to the cemetery, passing under a flag hung between two raised fire truck ladders in honor of Army Staff Sgt. Shamus Goare, 29.
Goare was on a special operations mission June 28 to rescue four Navy SEALs missing in mountains near the Pakistani border when the MH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down.
“We are here celebrating in freedom made possible by Staff Sgt. Shamus and his crew,” said the Rev. F. Richard Snoke at the funeral. “Shamus loved his family, loved his country. He loved his community and, oh yes, he loved his street rods.”
Goare graduated from high school in 1994 in the town about 50 miles northeast of Columbus. He was 17 at the time and fooled his mother, Judy, into signing his enlistment form, family said.
He had lived in Georgia, where his unit was based, for about five years, and he recently bought a house in Rincon.
Friends and family say Goare would have been embarrassed by the attention from Danville residents.
“He was an unassuming young man,” Army chaplain Jim McNeely said. “He did not seek fame and fortune.”
As a member of the Night Stalkers special operations unit, Goare couldn’t tell his family what he was doing.
After Goare was buried — once ‘Taps’ had been played and the Army honor guard had folded the flag draping his coffin — one more tribute was made. The hot rod drivers revved their engines and squealed their tires sending a plume of smoke billowing from the blacktop.