General: Marine will never be forgotten; 'He made us all braver'

By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer | Friday, April 13, 2007 11:25 PM PDT ∞

Annette Griego and her husband Phillip Griego both wipe tears as they, Gary Adlesperger, top right, Griego's son Matthew Griego, 14, and Lt. Col. James McArthur, left, listen during a Navy Cross presentation ceremony for Annette Griego's son Lance Cpl. Christopher Adlesperger, who was killed in Iraq, at Camp Pendleton on Friday. Gary Adlesperger is Christopher Adlesperger's biological father.
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CAMP PENDLETON -- He was only 20 and just a private when killed in battle in Iraq, but a general promised Friday that Lance Cpl. Christopher Adlesperger will live forever in the annals of Marine Corps valor.

"He made us all braver," said Maj. Gen. John Paxton after Adlesperger's parents were presented with the Navy Cross, the second-highest honor a Marine can be awarded for combat action.

Adlesperger was given the honor posthumously, having been killed in another battle three weeks after his heroics during a firefight in the insurgent-riddled city of Fallujah resulted in the citation.

"He showed us the way that day," Paxton told more than 200 Marines, sailors, family members and guests after presenting the award near the base's Camp San Mateo headquarters of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. "He represented to all of us what valor is all about."

Adlesperger's moments of valor came in 2004 on Nov. 10, the day the Marine Corps celebrates each year as its birthday.

The rifleman, who had been a Marine for less than a year, was part of a squad that entered a house in Fallujah during one of the largest and most intense battles of the war in Iraq.

The squad immediately came under heavy machine gun fire, which killed the point man, Lance Cpl. Erick Hodges, and injured Navy medical corpsman Alonso Rogero and Lance Cpl. Ryan Sunnerville.

Adlesperger immediately attacked despite suffering a slight facial wound from a grenade explosion. He is credited in the citation from the secretary of the Navy with going on to single-handedly clear a stairwell and rooftop, exposing himself to heavy fire in the process.

After helping move the wounded to the rooftop, he demanded to take the lead in the final assault on the machine gun position. He also was the first to re-enter a courtyard outside the home, killing an insurgent as he did, the Navy said.

The courage and leadership shown that day was something his platoon members said Friday they were not surprised to see from the New Mexico native they knew as "Sperge."

"He would tell me he was just doing his job," said Cpl. Carlos Batista, who joined the battalion, known as the Darkhorse, at the same time as Adlesperger. "He was the greatest Marine I ever met."

The man who led the platoon, 1st Lt. Michael Cragholm, now works as an instructor at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. Before coming to the ceremony, he said, he watched as 188 new Marines, all of whom he said knew the name and story of Adlesperger, graduated from the course.

"He is the warrior that the Marine Corps will remember," Cragholm said of the graduate of Albuquerque's El Dorado High School.

Adlesperger was killed by insurgents Dec. 9, 2004, while searching a building in Fallujah. He was given a posthumous promotion to lance corporal.

His parents said Friday that they were taken aback when they learned what their son had done shortly before his death, a story he only hinted at in messages to them after the battle.

"I don't know where he got the courage from," said his father, Gary Adlesperger. "I was shocked at first to hear of his bravery."

His son would have been very humbled, he said, but pleased to receive the Navy Cross.

"He would have been embarrassed but proud to know of the impact he had on his fellow Marines."

Wearing her late son's dog tags, his mother Annette Griego said her only wish was that her son could have been present to receive the award himself. His decision to join the Marine Corps surprised her, she said, but he explained he wasn't interested in just getting an education and paycheck from a job in the civilian world.

"He said he wanted his life to mean something," she said of her son, who had been nominated by his battalion commander for the Medal of Honor.

Maj. Gen. Paxton reminded those present that a Marine doesn't "win" the Navy Cross.

"You earn the cross for service above and beyond the call of duty," he said. "He wasn't, 'We gotta do this.' He was, 'Follow me.' "

Lance Cpl. Maxine Cooper, one of Adlesperger's high school classmates, attended the ceremony because, she said, she needed to honor his memory.

Her mother, Lou Filanosky, drove from New Mexico to attend the event.

"When she joined the ROTC in high school a lot of kids treated her pretty badly," Filanosky said. "He didn't. He was always checking with her to make sure she was all right. Chris was a good kid."

The "good kid," Paxton said, is now a member of an exclusive fraternity of past and present Marines whose acts in battle exemplify the credo of the Marine Corps -- honor, courage and commitment.

-- Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.