By GREG JORDAN
CEDAR BLUFF, Va. — Flags in and around the Cedar Bluff community were lowered to half-staff Monday to mark the passing of a local man who died while serving his country.
Virginia Guardsman Spc. David E. Lambert, 39, of Cedar Bluff died Oct. 26 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device, Maj. Gen. Robert B. Newman, Jr., Adjutant General of Virginia, said.
Locally, residents were starting memorials to a local soldier. Gov. Timothy Kaine ordered that both the national and state flags be flown at half-staff in Richmond in Lambert’s memory. Local communities have also been called upon to lower their flags to half-staff in Lambert’s memory.
“We’ll be flying the federal and state flags in front of town hall until Mr. Lambert is interred,” said Town Manager James McGlothlin.
“We’re getting a lot of comments from local people,” McGlothlin said. “Whether you knew Mr. Lambert or did not, it brings it home when you’ve lost a local person. Myself and other community members who didn’t personally know him are very proud of his service to our country and very sorry about his loss.”
Ronnie Sparks, a business teacher at Richlands High School and former guardsman, knew Lambert and his family.
“He was a great guy. He was very nice and had a good sense of humor,” Sparks said. “He was a guy you would trust.”
SFC James Spurlock of the Virginia National Guard, who served with Lambert in the 1033 Engineer Support Company, had known him since June 2005.
“He had been with the Virginia Guard for six years,” Spurlock said. “He got out in 2000 and came back in ’05, and prior to that he had done some time in the regular Army. He was a first-class individual and a really outstanding guy. I’ve heard nothing but good things about him, and he was well-respected in anything he was involved in. He was just a decent guy.
“He felt that he needed to come back and do his part. There are still a few patriots in Southwest Virginia,” Spurlock said.
Spurlock, who served in Iraq from February 2004 to February 2005, said Lambert also “felt a commitment to the guys in the unit that he knew. That’s important. It always comes down to the guys in the unit.”
One way people who did not know Lambert can honor his memory is to remember that Veterans Day is coming soon, Sparks said.
“People really need to remember all the people over there, all the people who were killed or injured over there and in any kind of war,” he said.
Remembering veterans and their sacrifices helps preserve what they did, Spurlock said. Someday Operation Iraqi Freedom could be “three lines in a history book and names on a marble slab,” he said.
“The simple act of remembering,” Spurlock replied when asked how to honor Lambert and others. “As long as somebody remembers, that’s the main thing.”
Singleton Funeral Home in Cedar Bluff will be in charge of funeral arrangements for Lambert, said Mark Singleton. No date for the funeral had been set as of Monday.
— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com
