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Thousands attend service for Maupin

CINCINNATI — Older men in Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion caps stood side by side with soldiers young enough to be their grandchildren Sunday at the Cincinnati Reds' Great American Ball Park for the funeral of Staff Sgt. Keith M. “Matt” Maupin.

The 3,502 people who came through the turnstiles, and the small group of family and friends who buried him with full military honors in a private ceremony later, witnessed the final chapter of a story that touched people around the country for four years.

Maupin, a 20-year-old Army reservist, was assigned to guard a convoy near the Baghdad airport in April 2004, when a brutal attack by Iraqi insurgents left two of his fellow soldiers dead and him a captive.

He had been missing longer than any soldier in Iraq, and next to nothing was known of his fate until his body was found last month by U.S. soldiers northwest of Baghdad, about 12 miles from where the convoy was ambushed.

Many of the men and women in attendance Sunday have sons and daughters in Iraq and Afghanistan and knew full well it could have been them sitting in front of that casket Sunday afternoon.

“That could have been my son," said Tim Nienaber, 54, as he clutched an American flag and stared straight ahead at the stage that minutes earlier held the casket. His son, Patrick, was stationed in Iraq when Maupin was captured.

"He did the same thing Matt did. He guarded convoys," Nienaber said. "When he came home, we threw him one heck of a party. I wish Matt Maupin's mom and dad could have done that."

Keith and Carolyn Maupin, the soldier's parents, and his three siblings — Lee Ann Cottrell, Stephen Spencer and Marine Sgt. Micah Maupin — buried Matt Maupin later Sunday at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in a private ceremony with full military honors. The Maupin family wanted the burial to be private but also wanted to share their son's return with the thousands of Cincinnati-area people who had hoped and prayed for four years for his safe return. That part began Saturday morning with a 20-hour visitation at the Union Township Civic Center, where about 10,000 people passed by his casket.

Army chaplain Jason Logan began the Sunday service by urging the audience to "celebrate the life of a unique soldier" and "to give God thanks for this special gift."

A letter from his brother Micah spoke of a childhood trip to Kings Island amusement park, where they rode The Beast roller coaster, and how Matt had stepped in and saved his brother when he got into a fight with a bigger kid.

"I knew you would always be there for me, no matter what," Micah wrote. "God could not have chosen a better soldier than you."

Many times during the ceremony, as tributes were delivered by speakers, the crowd would stand and applaud.

After the benediction, the soldier pallbearers lifted the casket off its platform — as several dozen white doves were released from the visitors' dugout — and slowly brought it the waiting hearse.

Keith and Carolyn Maupin, with their family and friends and the military members who would accompany them to the cemetery, walked behind the hearse as it drove slowly around the warning track. Maupin became one of the faces of the war in Iraq for many Americans after the Arab television network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape in April 2004 showing him wearing camouflage and a floppy desert hat, sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men with rifles.

Two months later, another Al-Jazeera tape purported to show him being shot. But the dark and grainy images showed only the back of the victim's head, not the execution.

Carla Van Schuyver, of Edgewood, Ky., and her friend Dennis Cope arrived early for the funeral. Van Schuyver said she came because her son, Pfc. Derek Murray, is deployed in Iraq, doing what Maupin did, driving trucks in convoys.

"This hits very close to home and my heart," she said.

Photos from the Cincinnati Enquirer:

* Staff Sgt. Matt Maupin funeral

* Visitation draws thousands

* Body arrives at Lunken; procession begins

Video:

* Thousands pay respects at visitation

* Well-wishers watch procession pass

* Maupin’s body arrives at Lunken