Some brought yellow roses, a floral tribute to a fallen warrior, as they came Tuesday to mourn Minnesota National Guard First Lt. Jason Timmerman.

Others pinned green ribbons to their lapels in support of Timmerman's unit, the 151st Field Artillery based in Montevideo.

All who walked through the doors at the Church of the Holy Redeemer brought a heavy heart.

"You never think you'll lose anyone from southwest Minnesota," said Mary Wyffels, a Minneota, Minn., woman who knows Timmerman's parents. "It was just like your whole world came to end for a while when you first heard about it."

On Tuesday, more than 1,500 people jammed the brick church in Marshall to bid farewell to Timmerman, a 24-year-old Tracy, Minn., man who was one of three Minnesotans to die Feb. 21 in Iraq, when a bomb detonated near their stopped military convoy.

Timmerman's funeral was the first of the three services scheduled for the men, all of whom had ties to western Minnesota. It was as if life in Marshall ground to a halt as people bid farewell to him.

The former math teacher graduated from high school just up Hwy. 23 in Cottonwood.

Parked cars lined the quiet side streets of Marshall for blocks. People lined up five deep waiting to get in to the church. Space was even tight in a downstairs overflow room as mourners settled
for watching the services on closed-circuit TVs that barely worked.

"This is one of the biggest funerals I've ever seen here," said Jim Muchlinski, a member of the Marshall American Legion Honor Guard.

The basement TVs had a fuzzy picture and muddy sound. That coupled with the small screens had many straining and squinting to catch anything from the service upstairs.

Not one person left.

"Everyone sat there reverently," said Dale Schroeder, another member of the Marshall American Legion Honor Guard.

Timmerman, who worked at North Star Insurance Co. in Cottonwood, was remembered as a man of faith who had a deep love for his country.

A flag made of red, white and blue flowers sat near his casket in the church. Country singer Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American" rang forth as Timmerman's casket passed by the pews for the last time.

Outside, olive-jacketed National Guard members formed a neat green line from the church door to the waiting hearse. With their white-gloved hands, they snapped a brisk, final salute to Timmerman's casket.

The military pageantry continued at the cemetery 6 miles away in tiny Green Valley. A thunderous fly-by of military helicopters buffeted the tall evergreens separating cemetery grass from the surrounding farm fields. Taps played as his widow, Teresa Timmerman, and family and friends gathered graveside.

Chris Ahlschlager, whose wife is one of Timmerman's cousins, said Timmerman's loss will be felt for a long time.

"He was just an outstanding citizen," Ahlschlager said. Whoever planted the bombs "took away a future leader of southwest Minnesota."