Eulogy by "Unk"

On behalf of the Terhune family, my brother Paul and Eric’s stepmother Carleen, our parents Dan and Joy, my wife Dotti and Eric’s cousins, Summer, Kendall, David and Becca, we thank you for being here to comfort us today. We are walking the “via dolorosa”…the road of sorrow. It is evident that we are not walking this road alone. You have come from sea to shining sea and beyond to share this burden with us. As we look from pew to pew, we are reminded that our grief, though indescribable, is not unique to us. We have stood with you in similar circumstances on your days of agony, on a cold day in Wisconsin, in the hills of Eastern Kentucky, in the sunshine of Florida, and Ohio, and New Jersey…..we are grateful that you are standing beside us again. Thank you.

Christians teach that “all good gifts come from God.” He is the Author of Goodness.

Today we gather to remember and celebrate one of God’s greatest gifts to us, the life of Eric Daniel Terhune.

Eric was born a Marine, in the Naval Hospital, Quantico, Virginia 13 September, 1973, where his father Paul was on active duty. As you can see from evidence around you and his life path, the Marine Corps remained a major theme of his life. Like his grandfather, and his father, Eric aspired to be named among the few, the proud, the Marines. Ronald Reagan is quoted saying…Some men spend their whole life wondering if they made a difference. Marines don’t have that problem.”

But Eric wasn’t just a Marine…he had other roles too. He had two great grandmothers, Gram Terhune and Granny Sue Sturgill. Gram called him the “crown prince” since he was the first Terhune boy through Dan’s line. To her he was another of Gram’s Lambs, for whom she prayed fervently.

Eric’s maternal Great grandmother, Granny Sue Sturgill, would sing the same song each time he visited….”There shall be showers of blessings.” And certainly for us, Eric was one of those blessings showered upon us.

No child is raised by a single adult influence, and that was especially true in Eric’s case.
Both my brother Paul and Eric were most fortunate to have my folks, Dan and Joy standing by ready to take over when Paul was a single parent with sole custody of an 11 month old child. Eric’s grandparents enthusiastically assumed and maintained that parenting role for his 34 years. They provided his infant and toddler needs, took him to Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Brookhill Swim Club, school events, extra academic tutoring, Little League baseball, soccer, etc. You know the drill…in other words, whatever it took to try to help Eric get started in life on the right track…they provided.
Mom and Dad…Paul thanks you…and I thank you…….and I know Eric thanked you in a thousand different ways. Eric died a hero’s death. Eric was raised by two heroes.

Their most important contribution, as with any child, was Christian commitment and character development. They aspired to raise Eric in “the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” But that too, is not a single effort or influence. It is fitting that this occasion is being held on these grounds. Eric grew up within the Tates Creek Presbyterian Congregation, many of whom had an enormous impact as his role models. The founding pastor here, Rev. Al Lutz, assigned Eric some landscaping duties back in the day. We are thankful for all that so many within the Tates Creek congregation have done to support Eric in so many ways over the years, including your efforts to minister to our family this week.

After high school Eric enlisted in the Marine Corps and traveled the world and began to dream of pursuing a career as a Naval Aviator as his father had done. This would require a college degree, and a commission as an officer. With some encouragement from his grandparents, he enrolled at Morehead State University, where he remained on the honor roll and competed on the varsity rifle team. There is no doubt that when Eric turned in his targets from a rifle match, who pulled the trigger. He was an expert sharpshooter. Only God knows for sure how much of Eric’s college papers he actually wrote. My mother was a tenured professor at UK, and spent her career, in part, grading undergraduate papers. Let’s just say that Mom was an enormous academic resource for Eric whenever a term paper was due.

During his college years he observed some major spiritual growth in his cousin Summer, who has spent time at Camp of the Woods, a family camp in the Adirondak Mountains of New York. He followed her there the following summer, and came under the discipleship of Nate Winters, along with about 15 other young adults. This period of close personal spiritual discipleship with Nate changed the direction of Eric’s life. We are thankful to Nate, who is with us today and will speak to us in a few moments.

Upon graduation from Morehead State University, he was commissioned a 2nd Lt. in the Marine Corps, and spent another year at Pensacola Naval Air Station, where he was awarded the coveted Navy Wings of Gold. Several of you here today were critical in helping Eric make it through that incredibly rigorous course. He was assigned to fly the HC53 Sea Stallion helicopter which he flew during his first tour in Iraq. During that tour he sustained a severe life threatening head injury, which rendered him medically disqualified for flying for about 2 years. He volunteered to be a Forward Air Controller, and returned to Iraq for a second tour which he completed in November of last fall. When his ship, the USS Denver, arrived in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, he was allowed to grant one family member the honor of joining the crew on their trip back to San Diego, California. Fittingly he chose my dad. That trip half way across the Pacific Ocean together, eating together in the ward room, watching ship operations from the bridge, showing his grandfather how to shoot an M-16, how to shoot a 50 cal. Machine gun….this was the greatest of bonding experiences for both of them. Eric has told me many times what a blast it was to share those days with Dad. For Dad, it was an indescribable joy to see his grandson performing as a Marine, and standing tall as a Christian officer.

Eric was expecting to return to training to be requalified as a helicopter pilot this winter, but the call came from the Marine Corps that they were short of Forward Air Controllers with his infantry experience in Afghanistan. He volunteered and deployed for the 3rd time in April of this year.

Volunteering was nothing new to Eric. He would volunteer around our house to take on the lowly chores….trash duty, difficult lawn duties. That didn’t stop in uniform. We have heard numerous reports of him volunteering to take the place of some of his friends who had a wife and children. He reminded my folks on numerous occasions to remember what they had taught him as a youngster…”to live is Christ…to die is gain..” or “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” He told my son that he would rather be killed in action than severely wounded and disabled, or die of old age. He said that he would rather die in battle as a Christian, since many of his buddies were not.

During this past couple of months Dan and Joy have been sending him batteries, wrist held GPS units, brownies, handy wipes. Aunt Dotti has sent granola bars, Shoe-goo, insect repellant. Many of you, especially from Anchor Baptist Church, have been sending him “care packages” for which he was thankful.

Since his arrival in Afghanistan, we heard from Eric sporadically. My folks got a few phones calls, and would describe them as somber. He couldn’t tell us much, but it was clear that he was living in very difficult circumstances. Our last email contact on was lengthy. Previously they were bullets…very brief notes to say hello but nothing newsy or prolonged. On 16 June, he wrote and addressed each of his cousins by name, encouraging them, affirming them, giving advice to them (i.e. don’t come to visit Afghanistan for a sightseeing tour) and expressed his longing to join us at our next family gathering. That message was our last contact with him.

The Marine Corps motto is “Semper Fidelis”….always faithful. What they mean is that they, the United States Marine Corps, will always be faithful to their fellow Marines, and to their country. But for us, as Christians, the term “always faithful” has a different connotation. We know that no man or woman is “always faithful, in an absolute sense. We know that our God is the only one that is “always faithful.”

That is our refuge during dark days like this. God is Semper Fi….faithful, always. God was faithful when Joseph was in the pit, to bring blessing from despair. God was faithful to Job, when his life was beset by inexplicable tragedy, including the death of children, and God transformed the agony of Gethsemane and Calvary, to the Glory of Easter morning and the empty tomb.
The heart of the Gospel message is triumph over despair, mercy in the face of our misery. Redemption is the transforming power of God working to bring blessings out of death.

Eric believed that Gospel message, that story of redemption. As Kendall has said, Eric is fine. We’re the ones for whom the bell tolls. We are the one who must now do what Eric did his entire life……overcome the odds….overcome obstacles. We must, like Eric did, carry on with a mission we have not chosen. It has been entirely legitimate for us to ask, like Jesus in the Garden, that this cup be passed from us. But as in the case of Jesus, that has not been granted. We must drink from this bitter cup with the faith that God will bring blessing through our loss, as He did with Jesus.

In the last of the 10 Commandments God demands that we not be covetous. We are specifically told by God Himself that we must not covet that which we do not have. We should not seek to have what is our neighbors. This is negative approach to another of God’s requirements for us, that we be thankful….that we express gratitude for how He has blessed us. I confess that though I am thankful that we had Eric for 34 years, I have a strong tendency to covet my neighbors who have had their children longer. I must be cautious that I do not grudgingly complain to the God of all the goodness and mercy in my life, telling Him that it wasn’t enough…that I want more blessings…. I want what my neighbor was given….that what I was given was not enough. We must be thankful for the days God has given us with those we love. We must be good stewards of those days, regardless of their number.

The Biblical figure that I associate most with our Eric, is David, the warrior King. David was an imperfect and complex individual who faced insurmountable odds from our human perspective, yet with the help of God, his achievement was legendary. We read in Scripture that though he was an incredibly effective warrior, David was a man after God’s own heart. Ironically, God’s Word teaches us through the life of David the most specific Biblical approach to dealing with death and dying, and grief. 2 Samual 12 tells us the details.
David prayed over a sick child, yet the child died. His staff was worried that David would hurt himself in his grief. David recognized the reality of his loss. David washed, changed his clothes, and went to worship. He then sat to eat, and tell those around him of his eternal hope…though the child could not come to him, eventually David will go to him.

This sequence of events is what we are following today. We have grieved together this last week, and you have helped us bear that grief. We have looked at his body, and we can say for certain, he is gone. That shell that we saw is not him anymore. We have washed our faces, and changed our clothes, and have come to worship.

So we are thankful. We are thankful for a God who has given us life, and who gave Eric life, and Who gives both our life and our death significance. We are thankful that life is not a circle, but has a trajectory that will lead those who call upon His name to eternal life with Him.
We are thankful that Eric was our gift for 34 years, and that he died for a noble cause in which he believed, and most of all, that he died confessing that Jesus is Lord of All.

We must wash our face, worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Eric, and rest in the fact….the fact…that he will not come to us, but we will go to him.

At the time of his death Eric was up for promotion to Major…not bad for a guy who started as a private. On June 19, 2008, Capt Eric Daniel Terhune was promoted to a rank higher than any general, or admiral, or public official. Eric was welcomed into the arms of the Lord of Lords, and King of Kings. Eric is truly home.