Three years ago, Pastor Ronald Kearns prayed with a soldier preparing for his first deployment to Iraq. Staff Sgt. Nathan Wyrick of Enumclaw was leaving his four boys behind, and Kearns handed him a Bible edited for soldiers to help him get through 12 months without them.
On Saturday, Kearns gave copies of the same Bible to Wyrick’s sons. Their father did not survive his second mission overseas. He was killed Oct. 10 in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province.
Kearns told the boys they have a new responsibility to Wyrick’s widow, Rachel.
“She needs you now more than ever. Be her men,” he said.
Hundreds of people gathered to mourn the 1996 Franklin Pierce High School graduate at two ceremonies Saturday, at the Church of Latter-day Saints in Lakewood and a second time that afternoon at his burial at the Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent.
Wyrick, who was 34, was remembered as a father who loved his family and fought for his country “to make a difference in the world.”
“You know how sometimes a guy’s never good enough for your daughter?” said his father-in-law, Ron Smith of Bonney Lake. “That was never the case with Nathan.
“I appreciated him as an honorable man, a wonderful father and a great son,” Smith said.
Wyrick joined the Army in 2006 after pursuing a career as an electrician. He stood out in high school as an athlete in track and football. Some of his friends from that time have painted tributes to him on a railroad underpass near their high school.
“We are so proud of you,” the messages read next to a giant No. 11, his football jersey number.
In recent years, Wyrick reached out to other military families at Lakewood’s New Hope Community Church. He was known to mow the lawns of soldiers while they were deployed to make life easier on their spouses.
“We’re going to miss him,” said Andrea Wright, 28, a close family friend from the church who sang during Wyrick’s funeral service. “We can never thank him enough for being there” when her husband was deployed.
Family was always on his mind even as he served 8,000 miles from home. Wyrick once arranged to give his church a Mother’s Day message from Iraq when he piped in on a video conference during its Sunday service to thank military spouses at New Hope.
“That was Nathan,” Kearns said. “If you were around him, you were better for it.”
Wyrick served in Iraq in 2008-09 with a Fort Lewis unit. He and his family moved to Fort Drum, N.Y., in July 2010 when he was assigned to the 3rd Infantry Brigade, 10th Mountain Division.
He deployed to Afghanistan as a supply specialist with the brigade’s 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, in March. The Army said this month that he died from combat-related injuries.
His funeral was packed with active-duty soldiers and veterans. Kearns acknowledged them several times during the service, saying he could only guess that Wyrick’s death showed “our heavenly father needed another noncommissioned officer for a task only he could do.”
Kearns said Wyrick would shy from the attention of his funeral. Instead, he’d want to recognize his fellow soldiers and comfort his wife.
“You’re tough,” Kearns told Rachel Wyrick. “You can do it. You’re an Army wife and you’re a good one.”
Adam Ashton: 253-597-8646
adam.ashton@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/military
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