Grantsburg, Wis., says goodbye to hometown Marine slain in Chat­ta­noo­ga

GRANTSBURG, WIS. – The line to en­ter Grantsburg Seni­or High School to say good­bye to Sgt. Carson ­Holmquist snaked around a berm in front of the school Sat­ur­day for much of the two hours the com­muni­ty was wel­come at his vis­it­a­tion.

Holmquist, 25, was one of four ma­rines killed at a Navy op­er­ation­al cen­ter in Chat­ta­noo­ga, Tenn., earli­er this month. His body was re­turned to his home­town of 1,300 about 80 miles north­east of the Twin Cities on Fri­day, flags and spec­ta­tors lin­ing the high­way into the city. Sat­ur­day's ser­vices at his alma ma­ter pre­ced­ed a pri­vate buri­al with mil­i­tar­y honors on the edge of town.

"When any­thing bad hap­pens, ev­er­y­bod­y comes out. That's just the way Grantsburg is," said Jul­ie Fiedler, an el­e­men­ta­ry schoolteacher.

Holmquist, who was a 2008 Grantsburg High gradu­at­e, was one of the hand­ful of stu­dents from each year's gradu­at­ing class of 50 to 60 that Fielder said en­lists. On Sat­ur­day, scores of both ac­tive and re­tired servicemen and women attended the serv­ice. Pa­tri­ot Guard Rid­ers stood vig­il, each hoist­ing American flags out­side of the school. Rough­ly 60 flag-bear­ing mo­tor­cy­cles lined a street near­by.

Rich­ard Burt, a vet­er­an of the Marines, rode his Harley Da­vi­dson from his St. Paul Park home to at­tend, leav­ing at 7 a.m. and pick­ing up Candy Ma­lo­ney from Inver Grove Heights along the way.

"Me be­ing in Viet­nam and him dy­ing in mil­i­tar­y duty," Burt said of what inspired him to make the trip.

Ma­lo­ney is a friend of the grand­moth­er of U.S. Army Specialist Joseph A. Kennedy, an Inver Grove Heights na­tive killed in Af­ghan­i­stan in 2011. He also was 25 when he died.

"You lose a child in that sit­u­a­tion — he was a very young man — you nev­er heal," ­Ma­lo­ney said. "The grief just chan­ges."

Wis­con­sin Gov. Scott Walker canceled pres­i­den­tial cam­paign stops in North Ca­ro­li­na and New Hamp­shire to at­tend Holmquist's fu­ner­al, the se­cond serv­ice for the five men killed on July 16.

As they walked out of the school Sat­ur­day, Charley King, and her husband, Bill King, Jr., each thanked the Pa­tri­ot Guard and law officers from all over the re­gion. ­Charley is a cous­in of Holmquist's step­moth­er and Bill spent 21 years in the U.S. Army.

"There's tears in­volved, there's love in­volved. All that mixed up in one big bowl," Bill King said.

Though Holmquist's kill­ing oc­cur­red a time zone away, the Kings still con­sid­ered it to have hap­pened in their own backyard.

"Even though he was sta­tioned in Ten­nes­see he was still here. He was raised here." Bill King said.

Steph­a­nie Sanvig and her hus­band, Tyler, drove up from Woodbury to at­tend. Steph­a­nie grew up in Grantsburg with Holmquist, and said he worked on her fa­ther's dairy farm for years.

"He was a coun­try boy," she said. "He liked be­ing on the farm."

The long line of fam­i­ly, friends and townspeople wait­ing to greet the Holmquist fam­i­ly was largely somber and silent.

"I'm re­al­ly not that sur­prised to see such a big line, just be­cause know­ing him and know­ing how much peo­ple cared about him," Sanvig said.

Capt. An­drew Chrestman, public af­fairs of­fi­cer for the Marine Forces Reserve, not­ed Grantsburg's pop­u­la­tion sign that marks the en­trance into town. If he had to guess, he said it looked like all were at the school on Sat­ur­day.

Though there was little talk of the man who end­ed Holmquist's life, Chrestman re­flect­ed on the rare man­ner of his death while in the line of duty. For the Marines, ac­cus­tomed to loss a­broad, this griev­ing proc­ess has a dif­fer­ent feel.

"You ex­pect to be safe in your own coun­try," Chrestman said.

Chrestman said all four Ma­rines killed dur­ing the shoot­ing are un­der con­sid­er­a­tion to re­ceive Pur­ple Hearts.

At the end of Sat­ur­day's ser­vices, Marines load­ed his cas­ket, co­vered by the flag, as doz­ens of oth­er Ma­rines and fam­i­ly looked on. Six mo­tor­cy­cles led Holmquist's fu­ner­al pro­ces­sion to his fi­nal rest­ing place. As the pro­ces­sion left, a few on­look­ers re­mained but the day's quiet per­sist­ed.

Stephen Montemayor • 952-746-3282