RIP Grassbaugh
Just now I was catching up on some e-mails from today. I hit Check mail expecting only to see the copies of the messages I'd just sent. There was one from an address that I didn't recognize. The subject told me everything I needed to know: "In Memory of Jonathan Grassbaugh".
The text of the e-mail was as follows:
For those who haven't been notified, Jonathan Grassbaugh, passed away on
April 7 while deployed in Iraq. A major IED exploded near his vehicle, killing him and four other soldiers.
Jenna is currently with his parents in New Hampshire making the final
arrangements. Jon will be returning home at the end of the week, at which point the family will be holding a memorial service there in New Hampshire.
They will then come down with Jon for his funeral, which will occur sometime
next week at Arlington National Cemetery.
Specific dates and times for any of these events are not yet known.
Jenna is making a memorial collage for the funeral and so if you have any
appropriate pictures of Jon you are encouraged to mail or email them to her.
If you are looking to send her photos, or anything else for that matter, the
Grassbaughs' mailing address is below.
Though nothing can allay Jenna's pain, she is comforted in knowing that she
has our support to call on whenever and however she needs it.
~Gavin Maguire
The Boston Globe has a story on him as well.
Jon Grassbaugh was in all likelihood one of the first people I met at Hopkins. I don't remember specifics, but logic dictates it would have been my first night there, partying at the old PR house. Last night, silently, unrelated to all this, I thought back to my memories of the PR house and the people who made it what it was. My freshman roommate Andrew was in ROTC, which is how I came to know Jon. Jon, Andrew & I all took at least one course together: Cognition with Bob Frank, Spring '01. I never called him Jon. Always "Grassbaugh". He was a very, very kind man. That's surely cliche to say about the recently departed, but with him, I mean it. The last time I saw him was probably May 2005 at Pete's Grille. He & Jenna Parkinson (a Barnstormer via her acting in the FOAs in 2002) had recently gotten engaged. He didn't quite remember my name, but he hadn't seen me in two years and had surely gone through a lot by then. I forgave him easily and congratulated him on the engagement. In the two years since, I've been in touch with him loosely via that mighty facebook.com and he's been in my thoughts, when I think of JHU ROTC or talk to Andrew or worry about those I know in the military.
I am fairly certain that Grassbaugh's the first friend of mine to have died in Iraq. I know so many young men (and probably a few women) who have been sent "over there", and I sometimes do the morbid online thing of checking the lists but it ain't easy on me. Lord knows the war ain't easy on them. I worry about all of them. Especially those I've known since we were kids, whom I'm not in touch with, but still care about. They're not the Facebook type. They weren't the college type. So what?
I'm angry. Angry that I'm not surprised that it'd happen at some point to somebody I know. Angry that we, the big we, have lost such an incredible young man whose young, adorable, military marriage had to be literally ripped apart by an IED. This is simply unacceptable. I don't know what to do. But I want them all to come home safely. Now.
The text of the e-mail was as follows:
For those who haven't been notified, Jonathan Grassbaugh, passed away on
April 7 while deployed in Iraq. A major IED exploded near his vehicle, killing him and four other soldiers.
Jenna is currently with his parents in New Hampshire making the final
arrangements. Jon will be returning home at the end of the week, at which point the family will be holding a memorial service there in New Hampshire.
They will then come down with Jon for his funeral, which will occur sometime
next week at Arlington National Cemetery.
Specific dates and times for any of these events are not yet known.
Jenna is making a memorial collage for the funeral and so if you have any
appropriate pictures of Jon you are encouraged to mail or email them to her.
If you are looking to send her photos, or anything else for that matter, the
Grassbaughs' mailing address is below.
Though nothing can allay Jenna's pain, she is comforted in knowing that she
has our support to call on whenever and however she needs it.
~Gavin Maguire
The Boston Globe has a story on him as well.
Jon Grassbaugh was in all likelihood one of the first people I met at Hopkins. I don't remember specifics, but logic dictates it would have been my first night there, partying at the old PR house. Last night, silently, unrelated to all this, I thought back to my memories of the PR house and the people who made it what it was. My freshman roommate Andrew was in ROTC, which is how I came to know Jon. Jon, Andrew & I all took at least one course together: Cognition with Bob Frank, Spring '01. I never called him Jon. Always "Grassbaugh". He was a very, very kind man. That's surely cliche to say about the recently departed, but with him, I mean it. The last time I saw him was probably May 2005 at Pete's Grille. He & Jenna Parkinson (a Barnstormer via her acting in the FOAs in 2002) had recently gotten engaged. He didn't quite remember my name, but he hadn't seen me in two years and had surely gone through a lot by then. I forgave him easily and congratulated him on the engagement. In the two years since, I've been in touch with him loosely via that mighty facebook.com and he's been in my thoughts, when I think of JHU ROTC or talk to Andrew or worry about those I know in the military.
I am fairly certain that Grassbaugh's the first friend of mine to have died in Iraq. I know so many young men (and probably a few women) who have been sent "over there", and I sometimes do the morbid online thing of checking the lists but it ain't easy on me. Lord knows the war ain't easy on them. I worry about all of them. Especially those I've known since we were kids, whom I'm not in touch with, but still care about. They're not the Facebook type. They weren't the college type. So what?
I'm angry. Angry that I'm not surprised that it'd happen at some point to somebody I know. Angry that we, the big we, have lost such an incredible young man whose young, adorable, military marriage had to be literally ripped apart by an IED. This is simply unacceptable. I don't know what to do. But I want them all to come home safely. Now.