Hundreds Lined the Streets to Welcome Fallen Marine Home

Photo courtesy of Matthew Ressler

Hundreds of people, police and firefighters included, lined the freeway overpasses Wednesday spanning from the San Diego Airport to Murrieta to honor the sacrifice of a man many of them have never met, but they all know who he is what he’s done for his country.

Marine Sgt. Eric M. Seaman, 30, died last month in a humanitarian mission in earthquake-ravaged Nepal along with five others when the Camp Pendleton-based UH-1Y helicopter he was in crashed.

He was delivering aid to the victims in a mountainous region destroyed by the 7.2-magnitude earthquake May 12.

On the overpasses, firetrucks with their ladders raised with the flags hoisted said all there were to say without uttering a word, “Gone but never forgotten.” That was the message at the Camp Pendleton memorial service last Wednesday. That too was the message his family wanted people to remember. They had T-shirts made with that phrase.

Seaman, a Wildomar native, had trained at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego after enlisting in 2009. Shortly afterward, he settled in Murrieta with his wife and their two children, 1-year-old Ryeligh and 2-year-old Roman.

It was nightfall by the time Seaman’s body arrived in Murrieta, en route to the Murrieta Valley Funeral Home. Hundreds of people lined the streets with flash lights and flags held high, saying nothing but speaking volume.

“It’s for my son-in-law, but God bless these people because they’ve been through something too,” Margie Thomas, Seaman’s mother-in-law, told NBC San Diego.

Seaman’s public services are scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday at The Diamond baseball stadium in Lake Elsinore, the funeral home told the Press-Enterprise. The burial will be private.