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                         February 6, 2004

Funeral held for 1997 grad killed in Iraq

By Spc. Eric S. Bartelt
Features Editor

Community members gathered Monday at the West Point Cemetery to pay their last respects to Capt. Matthew J. August.

August, a 1997 graduate, was killed in a bombing Jan. 27 in Khaldiyah, Iraq. He was 28.

A native of North Kingstown, R.I., August was the commander of Company B, 1st Engineer Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) out of Fort Riley, Kansas. His company has been in Iraq since September.

Defense officials said August and two other Soldiers died when insurgents hit them with a improvised explosive device in a roadside attack in Khaldiyah, a town 60 miles west of Baghdad. The incident is under investigation.

His wife, Capt. Maureen E. August, USMA 1998 graduate, who is also serving in Iraq with the 1st Armored Division, flew back to attend the services of her husband.

They were married June 6, 1998, at Most Holy Trinity, where Matthew’s funeral was held.

“Matt was a real source of light and confidence to all around him,” said Chaplain Edson Wood, who married Matthew and Maureen at the Catholic Chapel in 1998. “He was the stuff of which true leaders are made.

“We’re all poorer for his loss, and the Army has lost an officer who instinctively knew how to inspire confidence.”

When reminiscing of August’s good qualities Wood said Matthew reminds him of a line from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” “His life was gentle; and the elements so combined in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world: ‘This was a man’.”

August is survived by his wife, Maureen, his parents, Richard and Donna, his brother, Mark and sister, Melanie.