Lance Corporal Canning United States Marine

I never knew Corporal Canning, I wish I did. As a Drill Instructor  from 1965-1967 I graduated many a Marine, only to have many killed in the Nam. I was and still am saddened by their loss  as well as the loss of all our Fighting men and women.

— A message left on a cell phone by a Marine while he was serving in Iraq was played at his funeral service.

“Hey, Dad. It’s me,” Lance Cpl. Wesley Joel Canning of Friendswood said in the Nov. 7 message to his father, who couldn’t answer the phone while he worked on an oil rig. “I love you and miss you. We’re still over here. I love you and hope you’re doing all right.”

It was the last time Joe Canning of Friendswood heard his 21-year-old son’s voice. Wesley Canning was killed three days later during combat in Anbar province. About 250 people gathered Monday for the funeral service where he was remembered as a thoughtful husband and son who called often from Iraq.

Before calling his father that day, Canning also had called his mother, Jo Ellen. “He told me not to worry, that he’d be fine,” she said.

“He was gung-ho about the Marines,” Jo Ellen Canning said. “They had a speaker, a recruiter, at school and it really turned his head. He was already signed up when Sept. 11 happened, and that just made him want to go all the more.”

Canning decided to join the Marines while a junior at Friendswood High School. He went to boot camp in July 2002, two months after graduating from high school.

“It was his dream to become a Marine and serve his country,” said Scott Schiffner, a minister from Greeley, Colo., who officiated at the funeral service.

“Here is one man who lived his dream. He was a hero because he was willing to lay his life on the battlefield so we can enjoy our freedom.”

Chayla Canning was presented with the Purple Heart awarded to her husband. She also was given the American flag that draped his casket.                 

Canning’s parents also were given a Purple Heart and American flag.                                                   

With overcast skies, Canning was laid to rest following a military service with a 21-gun salute and a Marine playing “Taps.”

Canning was deployed for a second tour of duty to Iraq on Sept. 11 of this year. His first tour was during the initial invasion of Iraq.

Before the service, Friendswood City Manager Ron Cox presented the Canning family with a proclamation naming Monday as “Wes Canning Day” in Friendswood, the Houston Chronicle reported in its Tuesday editions.

Lance Cpl Canning is also survived by three sisters and a brother.

SPC Ray Joseph Hutchinson U.S. Army

Please visit the Ray Joseph Foundation.

I am proud to say I know Rays family and count them as dear friends. I pray this small tribute to Ray is acceptable.

During his training at Ft. Benning, he became a squad leader and later a platoon leader.  As graduation from advanced infantry training drew close, PFC Hutchinson was nominated to participate in the "Soldier of the Cycle" competition.  He accepted the nomination, considering it a great honor to represent his company, and became "Hutch" to his buddies.  On 17 Dec 2002, Hutch graduated as Distinguished Honor Graduate: the "Soldier of the Cycle".  He received the Army Achievement Medal, and went immediately into jump school where he got his "wings".   He said that jumping was one of the most exciting things he had done, and he loved every minute of it.  Since he had graduated first in his class, he was granted his choice of service.  Without hesitation, Hutch chose to become a part of the elite fighting force Ft. Campbell, Kentucky--the 101st Airborne (Air Assault).  He arrived there in early February of 2003, to discover a short time later that he would be deployed to Iraq for the war ahead. Right before deployment,  Hutch's parents traveled from Texas to Ft. Campbell so that they could spend time together and say goodbye.  Hutch's mother gave him a laminated card on which she had printed three scriptures:

Ten minutes past local noon on 07 Dec 2003, the Good Lord took Hutch Home in an instant.  Though he was about to be granted a two-week leave to come home to be with his critically ill grandmother, whom he dearly loved, Hutch told his parents in a phone call that he did not have the heart to bump another soldier off the emergency leave plane.  He told his parents he would wait until the next plane to come home for his grandmother.  He was sent on a mission after that call, and it became his last time to obey orders as a good soldier always does.   Returning from that mission, in the last vehicle of a convoy, Hutch left this world and stood in the presence of the Lord, when an improvised explosive device was detonated by the enemy.  In spite of this, Hutch stands in eternal victory and it can truly be said that, "The war is over, and a soldier is Home."   He more than performed his duty. He lifted the spirits of those who were discouraged, he was an expert gunner, a fearless infantryman, and he touched the hearts of those around him with his strength, his humor, his dedication, his loyalty, his goodness, his encouragement, his efforts to maintain the highest standards, his Faith in the Lord, and finally his selflessness to the point of sacrificing his life for the freedom of the oppressed and the continued freedom of his beloved America.  Just as he had predicted, exactly seven days after his death, the Infantry captured Sadaam Hussein.

In the last conversation he had with his mother right before his final mission,  Hutch told her, "I never worry about getting hurt, or dying.  I know that God walks with me.  I love you.....I'll be home soon..."   And all of his family, including his grandmother, and thousands more saw him for the last time as he was laid to rest on 16 Dec 03, in Houston, Texas, beneath the American Flag.

"Oh, my son!  What an honor to be your mother...."