Student remembers family of lost Marine
SCOTTVILLE — A Scottville girl is spending her allowance to make Christmas merrier for the family of a Marine who died in Iraq.
http://www.ludingtondailynews.com/news.php?story_id=34082
By KEVIN BRACISZESKI
Daily News Staff Writer
Posted: 12-6-2006
The Marine was 2nd Lt. Mark Gelina. He died while seeking out Iraqi insurgents in the city of Rawah, Iraq, during the first week of November. He left behind his wife, Stacey, and two children, 19 months and six years old.
“I felt really bad,” 12-year-old Andrea Miller said about learning the man she had chosen to be her pen pal had died. Andrea said she felt sorry for Gelina’s family and wished he had been able to go home and spend time with them during the holidays.
She picked platoon leader Mark Gelina as her Marine pen pal because he shares the same name as her father, and she is thankful to have her family as Christmas approaches.
So, when her classmates in Phil Quinlan’s class began collecting gifts to send to their pen pals in Iraq, Andrea took her savings and spent it on candy and gifts for the Gelina family.
“I got them candy canes and bought each one a gift … and the mother a pin,” she said, adding that she also bought them cocoa mix, taffy and other candy.
Andrea had spent about $20 on the presents by early afternoon Tuesday, and planned to go shopping with her mother again that night. Money for the presents came from Andrea’s allowance, pop can refunds and money she earned working for her grandmother, Barb Frazier.
Quinlan said his classes take on projects each year and this year’s project is to adopt the Marine company headed by his brother, Maj. Sean Quinlan.
Students chose their pen pals from the list of Marines in the unit, and Andrea said she wrote Gelina a letter and was waiting for a response when she learned about his death.
“The company had lost two others to a roadside bomb a week earlier,” Quinlan said.
He said Gelina’s accident occurred when he fell about seven feet and died while trying to set a sniper position in Rawah. Quinlan said his brother had just talked to Gelina before the accident.
“I was looking forward to writing back and forth with him,” Andrea said about her feelings before the accident.
Now she has written to Stacey Gelina and has prepared a box of goodies for Stacey and her children.
“I’m hoping I will get a letter back so I would know how the package was,” she said. “I would like to meet them some day. I’d be in shock meeting a soldier’s family. It would be exciting and fun.”
kevinb@ludingtondailynews.com