House Bill hb9111

    Florida House of Representatives - 2002                HR 9111

        By Representatives Hogan and Crow






  1                         House Resolution

  2         A resolution extending condolences to the

  3         family of Spc. Marc A. Anderson.

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  5         WHEREAS, "never surrender, and never leave a fallen

  6  comrade behind" are the words that sum up the creed of the

  7  United States Army Rangers and are the words by which Spc.

  8  Marc Anderson served his comrades and lived the last hours of

  9  his life, and

10         WHEREAS, Marc Anderson, a Florida State University

11  honor graduate, track and field All-American, and recipient of

12  the Golden Torch awarded to the top student athlete of the

13  year, was a popular seventh grade math teacher at Fort Myers

14  Middle School Academy when he enlisted in the Army in 1998,

15  and quickly became one of its elite soldiers, serving in a

16  special operations group prepared for deployment anywhere in

17  the world on 18 hours' notice, and

18         WHEREAS, on March 4, 2002, Spc. Marc Anderson, 30, was

19  one of a six-member fire team, part of a helicopter rescue

20  team sent to retrieve the body of a Navy SEAL killed in combat

21  against al-Qaida and Taliban forces, and, on March 4, 2002,

22  Spc. Marc Anderson was one of six United States soldiers who

23  died in the snow-capped mountains of east Afghanistan, the

24  result of enemy fire, and

25         WHEREAS, on March 11, 2002, six months after the tragic

26  events that sent Spc. Marc Anderson to his death on foreign

27  soil, approximately 600 family members, friends, and

28  comrades-in-arms gathered at St. Raphael Catholic Church in

29  St. Petersburg to express their grief, among them, United

30  States Representative C. W. Young, whose vote to send American

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    Florida House of Representatives - 2002                HR 9111

    768-125-02






  1  soldiers to war against terrorism, he stated, made him "feel a

  2  personal responsibility" for Marc's death, and

  3         WHEREAS, several hundred mourners made the 70-mile trip

  4  from St. Petersburg to the National Cemetery near Bushnell in

  5  Central Florida to stand on a hillside during the final

  6  ceremony as one last tribute to a fallen hero before he was

  7  laid to rest, NOW, THEREFORE,

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  9  Be It Resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of

10  Florida:

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12         That the House of Representatives pauses in its

13  deliberations to extend its heartfelt condolences to the

14  family and friends of Spc. Marc Anderson.

15         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this resolution

16  be presented to David and Judith Anderson, parents of the late

17  Spc. Marc Anderson.

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