Thursday, 4:30 PM
Swampscott mourns a fallen soldier
By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff
Hundreds of friends, neighbors and veterans lined the streets of Swampscott today to mourn the town’s first resident to die in combat since the Vietnam War, a car-loving former altar boy named Jared J. Raymond.
Under a fluttering American flag suspended between the ladders of two fire trucks, two chestnut horses pulled a black caisson bearing the remains of Raymond, an Army specialist who was killed last week when an improvised explosive device struck the tank he war driving in Iraq.
People wept, saluted and waved American flags as the caisson proceeded from the church where Raymond was baptized 20 years ago to the cemetery where today he was buried.
"Let me just say public what everyone here feels: Jared Raymond is a hero," said the Rev. Robert Reed during a packed funeral Mass inside St. John the Evangelist Church in Swampscott.
As hundreds watched in silence, an Army officer presented Raymond's mother, Jaclyn, with several awards her son had won, including the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.
"I don't think anyone of us here will forget this day as long as we live," Reed said. "The day we said farewell to Jared."
An only child raised by his mother and grandmother, Raymond, 20, enlisted in the Army a month after graduating from Swampscott High School in June 2004. He had wanted to join since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, his family said.
