Marine Sgt. Anthony D. Matteoni

Died October 1, 2010 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom

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22, of Union City, Mich.; assigned to 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.; died Oct. 1 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

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Motivated to join Corps after seeing 9/11 unfold

By Justin A. Hinkley

Battle Creek (Mich.) Enquirer

UNION CITY, Mich. — Tucked away in a closet at Russ Raymond’s Union City home is Tony Matteoni’s varsity letter jacket from Union City High School, a glistening “U.S.M.C.” pin stuck to the jacket’s front.

Marine Corps Sgt. Tony Matteoni, 22, died Oct. 1 in Helmand province, Afghanistan. Three days after Matteoni’s death, Raymond said the pin reminded him of the zeal the 2006 Union City graduate had for serving his country.

“He was a patriot,” said Raymond, Matteoni’s former high school teacher and longtime family friend. “He wanted to serve.”

Matteoni was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, out of Camp Lejeune, N.C., the Defense Department said in a release. Details of the death were not included in the release and there was no answer Monday at a Camp Lejeune media hotline.

Raymond said this was Matteoni’s first tour in the Middle East since he joined the armed forces straight out of high school, though he had toured Europe.

Matteoni was married in July 2008 to Lindsy Matteoni and the couple is expecting a baby girl in February, Raymond said.

Reached at the Winter Springs, Fla., home of the Marine’s parents, younger brother Joey Matteoni declined to speak with a reporter but said a service would be held in Kalamazoo at a later date. Matteoni had four siblings.

Matteoni was the second Union City native to die in the United States’ war on terror and his death came as the community still mourned the Sept. 15 death of Athens native Jimmy Hansen, 25, a senior airman with the Air Force who was killed in Iraq.

Marine Lance Cpl. Craig Watson, 21, of Union City became the first local casualty of the war when he was killed in December 2005 in Iraq.

“It’s very sad,” Raymond said. “Union City has certainly contributed our people.”

Matteoni lived with Raymond the last semester of his senior year of high school, finishing out his education at Union City while his parents moved to Florida, Raymond said.

“Friend” is the first word that comes to mind when the former teacher hears his former pupil’s name.

“He was very friendly and outgoing,” Raymond said. “He was well-liked and a hard worker.”

Raymond said Matteoni decided to join the Marines when he was a high school freshman. That was when the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks happened.

Matteoni’s grandparents live in New York City and “he said he wanted to join the Marines because of the way that [Sept. 11 attacks] moved him,” Raymond said.

In high school, Matteoni ran track and liked art. Raymond still has a clay television the boy made in elementary school.

“I’m just heartbroken,” Raymond said. “Devastated.”

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Town turns out to welcome home fallen Marine

By Elizabeth Willis

Battle Creek (Mich.) Enquirer

UNION CITY, Mich. — Escorted by police officers, firefighters and patriot guard riders, a fallen hero returned home Oct. 9 to the tears and salutes of a town wracked with anguish over his passing.

Marine Corps Sgt. Tony Matteoni, 22, died Oct. 1 serving his country in Helmand province, Afghanistan. It was his first tour of duty in the combat zones.

More than 200 people flanked the small town’s main street, holding American flags and standing in solemn tribute to the 2006 Union City High School graduate.

Matteoni’s friends said he was a boy who loved adventure and had a robust sense of humor.

“Tony was our entertainer,” said Beth Arey, a Union City native and a friend of Matteoni’s mother, “but he also gave us many gray hairs.”

When he was just 10 years old, Matteoni hopped on his bicycle and rode the 10 miles from his home to hers. Arey said when Matteoni arrived at her doorstep flushed and excited to have completed the mission, she couldn’t be mad at him.

“There wasn’t an adventure he didn’t want to go on,” she said.

Matteoni joined the Marines because he felt compelled to protect his country after witnessing a friend nearly die in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centers in 2001, Arey said.

“We sent him to boot camp a boy and he came back a man,” she said. “We are proud of his serving our country.”

Alhough he had a Marine’s tough exterior, Matteoni was a kind-hearted man who loved his wife, Lindsy, deeply, she said. They were expecting a baby girl in February.

“She would have had him wrapped around her little finger,” she said.

Arey said the family did not wish to reveal the details of his death, but she called it an accident in which there was no wrongdoing.

Some of the first people to line Union City’s streets to greet the fallen Marine were mothers of veterans who also had served their county.

There were those like Maria Wolf, 54, of Battle Creek, who has a son also serving in the Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Everyday since he got out of boot camp nine years ago, Wolf has worn his military photo over her heart as a testament to the sacrifice he has made voluntarily.

“As a Marine mom, getting that knock on the door,” she said. “I can’t even fathom what the family’s going through right now.”

But there were some who knew what that knock sounds like, and they were there to offer whatever support they could.

Shirley Watson, 55, and Diane Huhn, 57, lost their sons in the same tragedy five years ago. That’s how the women met.

“We know exactly what they are going through,” Huhn said. “We want to show his family that we care.”

Watson’s son, Lance Cpl. Craig Watson of Union City, and Huhn’s son, Lance Cpl. David Huhn of Portland, died with eight other men after a blast by an improvised explosive device in Fallujah, Iraq.

At the time, Watson did not tell anyone about her son’s death and so no homecoming was held in Union City. In fact, she said she does not remember most of that first week except for what was captured in photos and what comes to her in flashbacks.

“I just wanted him home,” she said.

Huhn, however, said that for the three days after he returned to Portland, a town not much larger than Union City, she said he belonged to the community. They celebrated his life and death together.

But after the flags are put away, life goes on for everyone except the family. People forget, but the mothers do not.

“You’ll always have a hole in your heart,” she said.

That’s why Watson and Huhn, along with others, send cards on birthdays, Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day. They want the families to know there are people who don’t forget.

“We will always remember,” they said.

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‘He lived pretty much every day’

By Justin A. Hinkley

Battle Creek (Mich.) Enquirer

KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Those mourning the death of Tony Matteoni were greeted at St. Joseph Catholic Church with images of Tony the Marine, the grinning boy, the proud and smiling husband.

About 200 people filled the sanctuary at the Kalamazoo church on Oct. 12 for a final farewell to Matteoni, the 22-year-old Marine Corps sergeant and 2006 Union City High School graduate who died Oct. 1 in Afghanistan.

Entering the sanctuary, attendees were handed programs filled with photos of Matteoni, smiling in most every one.

In one, he’s a beaming tot in an oversized hat. In another, a young Marine wrapped lovingly in the arms of Lindsy Matteoni, the wife he’s left behind. They married in July 2008, the program says. In a note Lindsy left in the program, she says their baby girl, expected in February, will be named Avery Danielle Matteoni, carrying the initials of her late father, Anthony Dennis Matteoni.

Here, in another program photo, Matteoni is a proud and dedicated high school athlete. There, he’s the fatigue-wearing Marine who friends said was eager to serve his country after watching the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, on his grandparents’ hometown of New York City.

The photos, the biography and the eulogies printed in the program paint in broad strokes the image of a man full of life. And that is the way he was remembered.

“He lived pretty much every day,” St. Joseph’s Rev. Mike Hazard said in the homily at the service. “He didn’t have much downtime, in terms of living. ... He wanted to be a leader.”

And the man was full of love, Hazard said. Matteoni worked with zeal to woo his wife, sometimes folding himself into his foot locker on a military base to call Lindsy in secret when military regulations forbade him from calling openly.

And love, Hazard said, is the legacy Matteoni will leave with those who knew him.

“For love is as strong as death, passion fierce as the grave,” Russ Raymond, Matteoni’s former high school teacher and a longtime family friend, read from the Bible’s Song of Songs. “ ... Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.”

“If we would honor him, let us dream the dream of self-sacrificing love,” Hazard said to the mourners. “And let us live it every day in our own lives.”

After the service at St. Joseph, a caravan dozens of cars long made a slow procession from Kalamazoo to Fort Custer National Cemetery in Augusta, where already three other area casualties of the ongoing wars in the Middle East are buried.

Matteoni’s death struck more than those who knew him.

Kalamazoo’s Helene Stuurwold and her son, Peter Stuurwold, stood outside St. Joseph as the mourners entered, a Star-Spangled Banner spread proudly between them. Peter Stuurwold said he had friends serving in the Middle East. News of a soldier’s death brings him mixed emotions, he said.

“I think, ‘gosh darn it, it’s a tragedy, but at least it wasn’t one my friends,’ ” he said. “And I feel guilty thinking that way, but I think everyone does.”

His mother added, “It makes us think about how costly freedom is.”