News

A fallen serviceman

By Sherry Long slong@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

NANTICOKE – Thanksgiving is taking on a new whole meaning for some in the wake of the death last week of U.S. Naval Petty Officer 2nd Class Brian M. Patton.

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Brian Patton’s wife, Amy Hynoski Patton, and other family members of the Navy reservist are consoled by a Pennsylvania state trooper outside the Stegura Funeral Home in Nanticoke after Patton’s body was escorted up from Delaware on Wednesday morning.

PETE G. WILCOX photos/THE TIMES LEADER

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The casket of the body of fallen Navy reservist Brian Patton is set down on a dolly by a mix of military, police, fire and EMT personnel outside the Stegura Funeral Home in Nanticoke on Wednesday morning. Patton, a military police officer, died in a motor vehicle crash in northern Kuwait last week.

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The Brian M. Patton Memorial Fund to benefit Patton’s two sons, Nicholas, 8, and Brian James, 19, and his wife has been set up at PNC Bank, his wife confirmed.

Patton’s wake will be from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday in the Nanticoke Area High School gym. His funeral will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Adalbert’s Church, 31 S. Market St., in the Glen Lyon section of Newport Township.

He will then be laid to rest in the church’s cemetery.

The 37-year-old Nanticoke resident died Nov. 19 in northern Kuwait after a vehicle crash that seriously injured his friend and colleague David Morgan, who was still at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland on Wednesday afternoon.

“Feels like your heart is broken,” said Joe Weiss.

Calling it “just tragic,” he expressed how sad it was that Patton had died, especially around the holidays and being so far from home and his family.

Weiss, who said he doesn’t know the Patton family, retired from the U.S. Army in 1995 after more than 24 years of service.

Patton’s body was returned to Nanticoke on Wednesday morning at about 11:30 after a state police escort to the Stegura Funeral Home in Nanticoke. He will be laid to rest at a funeral at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Adalbert’s Church in Newport Township.

Patton’s death hit home for Donna Shook of Hanover Township. Although she said she doesn’t know the Patton family personally, she feels a bond with them because her 19-year-old nephew is in the U.S. Navy and currently stationed in San Diego, Calif.

“I feel for the family more than anything. I can’t imagine the heartache that the family feels. My heart goes out to the family,” Shook said, adding that Patton’s death reminds her to be thankful for what her family has and be thankful for what all military personnel do to keep America safe.

“He is a hero in my eyes even though I didn’t know him,” she said.

Patton was deployed to the Middle East in June with the Naval Security Force from Rochester, N.Y., to support Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom. It was his second tour in the region. He served during Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s.