Bonanza High graduate honored at ceremony

Stephen Curran

Thursday, Nov. 18, 2004 | 11:05 a.m.

The family of Lance Cpl. Nicholas Anderson asks that donations be sent in his memory to the remaining members of his unit. The Marines need pens, AA batteries, hard candy, cider and cocoa mix, beef jerky, magazines, lip balm, sunscreen, baby wipes and dark socks. The supplies can be sent to Sgt. D.J. Collins or 1st Lt. S.A. Cuomo, c/o Any Marine, 1/4 Wpns. Co., CAAT B, UIC 40270, FPO AP96610-0270.

It had the depth and tradition of a full-scale military memorial, though on Wednesday the Bonanza High School ROTC was honoring a soldier who was one of them a little more than a year ago.

For some, Nicholas Anderson was just a "funny, normal guy" who loved his friends but was an average student. Others remembered a patriotic American who stood by his friends and his country.

Marine Lance Cpl. Nicholas Anderson, a 2003 Bonanza alumnus and former ROTC platoon sergeant at the school, was killed Friday in a vehicle accident in Iraq's Al Anbar Province. He was the ninth Nevada serviceman to be killed in the war on terror since fighting began in the region in late 2001.

Flags, which had been flying at half-staff Wednesday, were returned to full-staff after the memorial.

The ceremony, arranged by retired Sgt. Maj. Kip Kowalski, the school's ROTC instructor, capped an emotional week for Anderson's mother, Eleanor Andrea Dachtler, who had been caught in a dispute over where her only son would be buried.

Speaking briefly after the memorial, Dachtler, whose sunglasses became fogged from crying during the ceremony, said her son "loved his friends, loved his country and loved Amanda."

Her son met Air Force Airman 1st Class Amanda Barnicoat, who is currently serving in Japan, shortly after the couple enlisted in their respective branches, she said.

Barnicoat could not attend the memorial, held less than a mile from where the Trinity United Methodist Church in the 6600 block of West Charleston Boulevard displayed a digital sign urging passers-by to "Pray for our troops." The two had planned to be married but were unable to return to the United States for a wedding, Dachtler said.

"Oh Lord, he loved her and she loved him," Dachtler said of the would-be daughter-in-law she has never met in person. "She's the daughter of my heart. Between our conversations and our letters, I told her, 'You'll always be the daughter of my heart.' "

A Defense Department hearing Wednesday determined Anderson will be buried Monday in Ventura, Calif., where his father lives. While Anderson had lived in Las Vegas and attended school here since he was 3 years old, according to his mother, the young Marine had left a will stating that his father should handle funeral arrangements.

A separate memorial in Las Vegas is scheduled for 3 p.m. Nov. 28, at Mountain View Seventh-Day Adventist Church at 6001 W. Oakey Blvd., she said.

ROTC instructor Kowalski forged a close relationship with Anderson that lasted after his former student graduated. Anderson was his first former student to die in combat since he began teaching in 1999.

And while many of his 155 students are still reeling from the loss, Kowalski said they have routinely comforted him.

"I cried as we were putting it (the ceremony) together," Kowalski said after the memorial, his eyes tearing up. "They're a super bunch of kids and some of the older ones know I'm a big baby."

Cadet 2nd Lt. Emil Petkov, a Bonanza junior and a ranking cadet in ROTC, delivered a brief set of remarks before the crowd. Petkov, who did not know Anderson, said he and other cadets represented a "small part of his (Anderson's) family."

"It's been a depressing time," he said after the ceremony. "We're all hit by it."

Like Anderson, Petkov is planning a career in the military, although he said he wants to continue in college ROTC.

Jennifer Flores, a friend of Anderson's who was a Bonanza sophomore when he graduated, said she remembered her friend for the jokes he regularly cracked.

"He was just a funny, normal guy," Flores, a 2004 Bonanza alumna, said. "He loved everybody and never thought he was better (than anyone)."

Former Lt. Gov. Lonnie Hammargren, himself a Vietnam veteran, added a makeshift memorial to a traveling wall he and Las Vegas historian Bob McCaffery built earlier this year to hold the names of 544 fallen soldiers.

The wall sat on a trailer near the memorial service on the school's front lawn.

Hammargren, a neurosurgeon who served as an Army flight surgeon during Vietnam, said seeing young men and women dying overseas brought back memories of his own service. He said he was struck by the young soldiers' eagerness to fight for their country.

"It's the pride in all of them and how much they wanted to serve their country," he said of the young soldiers.

The former lieutenant governor, who said he twice voted for George W. Bush, called the war in Iraq "morally wrong" but said history may judge America's action differently.

"I voted for Bush but it was still a morally wrong decision (to go to war)," he said. "Sometimes we make morally wrong decisions to defend the country. It took us a long time to learn in Vietnam. I look forward to the peace agreement in the Middle East."