Pfc. Thomas Tucker honored, laid to rest

Gateway Pundit has story, links.

You may file this next bit in the "It's a Small World" Department. When our bookstore was in a small mall downtown, the folks who had the second hand store across the hall from us were Tom and Vivian Tucker. We were introduced in passing to various of their out-of-town relatives, including the young man buried Saturday, who was the grandson and namesake of our neighbor. We moved our bookstore out of the mall to another location here in town and the Tuckers moved their store to a small town about eight miles away, so we aren't neighbors anymore, but we still bump into each other now and then, generally every couple or three months or so, generally when we happen to show up at the same small restaurant at the same time. In case you've been wondering where I've been lately, amongst other things I've been dealing with things I haven't been obliged to address before this, like pondering what in the Sam Hill a person should or shouldn't say to someone who has lost a grandchild to monsters posing as humans.

I would like to say that I'm very proud of the good folks of Private Tucker's hometown of Madras, Oregon, and the surrounding communities, for the way they've handled this. The consensus seemed to build early on to focus on Tucker's life, his service and his sacrifice instead of the way he died. Support came in all shapes and forms, but at the same time family members and friends were allowed to be alone when they wanted to be left alone. Grief was openly expressed, but people stood tall as they cried. Good on them.