He was a stern-faced sniper —
and a soft-hearted Marine who handed out candy
to kids in Iraq. He was a warrior who wrote
poetry about life and death.
He was featured in Michael Moore's antiwar
documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11," portrayed as an
overzealous Marine recruiter who targeted poor
kids.
But Staff Sgt. Raymond Plouhar was far more
complicated than that.
And it was that complicated man who died in Iraq
in late June, as he served with some of the same
men he had recruited years ago. It was that
complex man who was buried Friday, by a family
that honored his service but would never forget
his humanity.
"He had a huge heart," says his widow, Leigha.
Plouhar was a Marine for 10 of his 30 years, but
he had dreamed of joining the military ever
since he was a little boy who liked to watch
"M-A-S-H" on television and dress in fatigues
and a camouflage shirt.
He entered the Corps straight out of high
school, was trained as a sniper and traveled the
world — Bosnia, Sudan and Israel. He had a
ramrod posture and a fierce pride in his
appearance: He once ironed his uniform and
polished its brass buttons for two hours before
allowing his mom to photograph him.
"He told me lots of times that he learned what
could be accomplished... if you put your heart
and soul in it — and he put his heart and soul
in the Marine Corps," says his father, also
named Raymond. "He was gung-ho from the time he
signed his name until the day he died."
His signature was a memorable one.
His birth certificate read Raymond James Byron
Anthony Charles Plouhar — he was named after all
his grandfathers. He followed a long family
tradition of military service that included a
grandfather who earned a Purple Heart in World
War II and an older sister, Toni, who was in the
Army.
Plouhar carried a Bible from his grandfather,
Raymond, to Iraq. He kept it in his left shirt
pocket next to his heart. Tucked inside was a
photo of his wife and their two sons, Raymond,
9, and Michael, 5.
As devoted as he was to the Marines, Plouhar had
a full life outside the military. He liked to
hunt and camp, take canoe trips and fish with
his boys.
He was known as a charmer, a good talker, a
champion of the underdog (always defending and
befriending kids picked on in school) and though
he was trained to fight and kill, he preferred
the role of peacemaker.
"He didn't like turmoil," recalls his mother,
Cynthia. "He wanted everybody to be happy, to
get along... He'd say 'Life's too short to sweat
the small stuff.'"
As family members gathered last week in their
lakefront home 30 miles north of Detroit, they
lined the walls and windows with photo collages
that tell Raymond Plouhar's life in chapters.
There's the grinning kid with the protruding
ears (a coach once joked he looked like a
Volkswagen with the doors open) proudly holding
up the bass he caught.
There's the sturdy athlete grappling with an
opponent around a wrestling circle and posing in
the green-and-white football uniform of the Lake
Orion Dragons.
There's the young man in love, sitting with high
school sweetheart, Leigha, on his dad's Harley
on their way to the prom, then years later,
together again, he in Marine blue, she in white,
on their wedding day.
Then there's the tough-minded Marine in helmet
and combat gear — doling out candy from a
plastic bag two months ago to schoolchildren in
Iraq.
"He admired the Iraqi people," his father says.
"He said, 'Dad, even though I can't understand a
word they're saying, if we were back home...
we'd be buddies.'"
Plouhar was killed on June
26 by a roadside bomb in Anbar province in his
second tour of duty in Iraq, weeks before he was
to return home. He was assigned to the 3rd
Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine
Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force in Camp
Pendleton, Calif.
Plouhar's family says he had no qualms about
returning to Iraq and he believed conditions had
improved since his first tour in 2005.
"I never worried," Leigha says, "because... in
my head, he was indestructible and nothing could
ever happen to him because he was so good at
what he did."
His mother says her son preferred to be at the
center of the action. In an undated entry in a
blog on MySpace.com, Plouhar said "you can call
me crazy" but he liked being in Iraq. "Someone
has to do it plus I love what I do," he wrote.
Plouhar did step back from active duty for four
years and worked as a recruiter in Flint so he
could donate a kidney to his uncle.
It was as a recruiter that Plouhar was seen in
Moore's award-winning "Fahrenheit 9/11." The
segment shows Plouhar and another Marine in a
mall parking lot in a depressed suburb of Flint;
it suggests the two men were cynically hunting
for poor teens to sign up, rather than go to a
wealthy suburb where they'd likely be rejected.
Plouhar's father says his son told him he had
been misled and believed he was being filmed for
a documentary that would appear on the Discovery
Channel. (Moore's office didn't return calls or
e-mail messages seeking comment.)
"He cried when he found out what it really was,"
his father says. "He never dreamed that it was
going to be something to slam the country, which
he dearly loved."
The movie, to be precise, is primarily a
criticism of the Bush administration's actions
after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
And yet, the elder Plouhar also says he doesn't
see anything wrong with his son's actions. "If
you really watched just the part with my son in
it," he asks, "how could you not say that he was
standing tall and proud?"
His parents say they've seen only the segment
featuring their son. Leigha Plouhar says her
husband asked her not to watch the film — and
she never has. Nor has Stephen Wandrie, his
friend of 20 years, who says Plouhar was hurt by
the film, but told him:
"'You know what? I know what I do is good for
this country and every one of those people I'm
recruiting — those guys are my brothers.'"
In the past month, the bloodshed that has become
part of the daily life in Iraq seemed to edge
closer and closer. He was shaken up in two
explosions.
Two weeks before he died, his mother says, he
called and she could hear the strain in his
voice. But he tried to be reassuring. "He said,
I'll be all right. I don't have much longer...
I'm ready to come home. I'm ready."
And yet he seemed prepared for the possibility
he wouldn't.
In a poem he sent to his family last year — a
poem now enlarged to floor-to-ceiling size, and
covering a wall of the Plouhar home — Plouhar
said he knew he could die serving his country
and was ready to make the sacrifice.
"I will leave my loved ones, my kids, my
wife...," he wrote. "Do not feel pity for me,
for this is my choice... This is me. This is who
I am. I am a Marine to the very end."
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