Slain Marine was dedicated to job, family

Monday, Jan. 31, 2005 | 10:49 a.m.

Marine Cpl. Christopher Lee Weaver expected to return from Iraq to his job with Bechtel Nevada's counterterrorism program at the Nevada Test Site in March.

Weaver, 24, had moved to Las Vegas in late April to go to work for Bechtel, his mother, Sharon Weaver, said. But before he had even found an apartment in Las Vegas, he received orders to return to Iraq with his Reserve unit.

Weaver's Company C, part of the 4th Combat Battalion based in Baltimore, was activated in June.

One of his friends, Tom Marlow of Alexandria, Va., a friend from their days in Theta Xi fraternity at Virginia Tech, said on the Web site www.MarineChat.com that he spoke to Weaver by phone the night he found out he was being deployed to Iraq.

"He was ready to step up and ready to go," Marlow said.

His mother recalled that Christopher "felt it was his duty to give back to his country."

Bechtel executives had made sure that he was able return to Virginia and to fulfill his assignment.

"They moved heaven and earth to allow him to get back to his unit," Sharon Weaver said.

And to show their continued support, in late December Bechtel employees sent him a care package. That kind of support was one of the reasons "he was looking forward to getting back to Las Vegas and the job at Bechtel," his mother said.

But while on a routine mission Wednesday in Haditha, Iraq, Weaver's unit was attacked by insurgents. A rocket-propelled grenade penetrated the armor of the vehicle in which Weaver was riding. He and three of his comrades died.

Weaver is the first of Bechtel Nevada's employees serving in the region to be killed in the Iraq war, LeeAnn Inadomi, a company spokeswoman, said. The company has one other Nevada-based employee on military leave, although Inadomi said she did not know where the employee was serving.

The son of Dave and Sharon Weaver of Spotsylvania County, Va., Christopher was Weaver born on Aug. 15, 1980, in Charleston, S.C., but the family moved to Virginia when he was a toddler.

"Christopher was the most loving, giving, easygoing child a mother could have," Sharon Weaver said.

His parents had told him recently that they appreciated both him and his older sister for their behavior while growing up.

His reply "was (that) he owed everything he was to his parents," his mother recalled, as she cried softly. "He couldn't have paid a better tribute to his parents."

Weaver had graduated with honors from Chancellor High School in Spotsylvania County, Va., in 1998.

At Chancellor, Weaver was voted "most typical senior" by fellow students. He was also one of 28 seniors chosen as a "superlative" member of the class.

He took several Advanced Placement classes and was a member of the German and chess clubs at his high school. He also participated in Students Against Drunk Driving.

Along with 30 of his fellow Chancellor graduates, he went to Virginia Tech. He graduated in December 2002 with a degree in history. Weaver joined the Marine Reserve the summer after his freshman year at Virginia Tech.

The other three Marines who died in the ambush attack on a convoy of the Fourth Combat Engineer Battalion's Charlie Company were all from Virginia, according to a Defense Department announcement about the deaths.

In Iraq, Company C was involved with the search for weapons caches, sweeping roads for explosives and building fighting positions, a captain of the company told a TV reporter embedded with those troops.

That company's four deaths were among 36 American troops killed in Iraq in a single day, the highest number of casualties since the war was declared over by President Bush.

In addition to his mother, Weaver is survived by a sister, Carly Marie Weaver of Cambridge, Mass. He also had a fiancee in McLean, Va.

Funeral services are scheduled for Friday at Covenant Funeral Home in Fredericksburg, Va. Burial will be at noon at Quantico National Cemetery with full military honors.

In lieu of flowers, the family asked that donations be made the Fisher Foundation (fisherhouse.org), which provides assistance for wounded Marines' families or to UNICEF, for children affected by the recent tsunami. Weaver's fiancee said blood could be donated to local blood banks in Weaver's name as well.