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| I'm writing this from heaven, here I dwell with God above, Here there are no tears or sadness, just eternal love. Remember that I'm with you, every morning, noon and night, And though I am no longer there, I didn�t give up the fight. That day I had to leave you, when my life on earth was through, God picked me up and hugged me, and He said "I welcome you". "It's good to have you back again, you were missed while you were gone, As for your friends and family, they'll be here later on." God gave me a list of things, that He wished for me to do, And foremost on that list, was to watch and care for you. I will be beside you, every day and week and year, And when you�re sad I'm standing there, to wipe away each tear. And when you lie in bed at night, the day's chores put to flight, God and I are closest to you, in the middle of the night. When you think of my life on earth, and all those loving years, Because you're only human, they're bound to bring you tears. But do not be afraid to cry, it does relieve the pain, Remember there would be no flowers, unless there was some rain. And to my friends I ask, trust that God knows best, I'm still not very far away, I'm just beyond the crest. When you're walking down the street, and you've got me on your mind, I'm walking in your footsteps, only half a step behind. And when you feel a gentle breeze, or the wind upon your face, That's me giving you a great big hug, or just a soft embrace. And when it's time for you to go, from that body to be free, Remember you're not going, you're coming home to me. And I will always love you, from this land way up above, We'll be in touch again someday, P.S. GOD SENDS HIS LOVE! |
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| In Loving Memory of Private FC Jesse R. Buryj 12-07-1982 to 05-05-2004 |
| Jesse was a good friend of mine. Although we grew apart within the couple of years prior to his death, he was never absent from my heart. Jesse and I went to school together, from kindergarten all the way through highschool. I was a majorette and he played the baritone in the marching band. My best friend Lisa was also a majorette, and his girlfriend at the time. They dated on and off for two years during the time we were in highschool. At the same time, I was dating Jesse's best friend Ryan, so double dates were a lot of fun! He was like a brother to me then, always protecting and looking out for me. There were many days that we would spend either lounging around at Jesse's house or my house, watching movies or just sitting around talking. Jesse's 18th birthday party was a blast. We watched the Texas Chainsaw Masacre (the original), and laughed about the guy in the wheelchair losing his can! We also had a great time teasing Ryan, when Jesse pushed Lisa and I into his bedroom and began blasting the "let's get it on" song, with Ryan beating on the door telling Jesse to let me out! We used to offer him donuts all the time, since he wanted to be a police officer. Footbal games were so much fun...especially away games because we all got to sit on the bus together. We used to get bored and just cruise around in Jesse's car, for something to do. I used to get calls at 2 in the morning from him, asking what he should do because he and Lisa had just had a fight. We'd talk for hours at a time. I miss those days, and never realized that there would be a time when I would be assured that I'd never recieve another late night call from him. I never did return the Sawshank Redemption movie he let me borrow, but I guess now I have it as a reminder of him. I'll be sure to take it to him when the time comes to meet in heaven. Jesse, you are greatly missed. These things don't seem real when they hit so close to home. I'm having a hard time believing that I'll never get a speeding ticket from you! I can't believe you are gone, and I can't understand why God took such a handsome and intelligent young man so early in life. Thank you for protecting our country, and for directly saving the lives of the husbands and fathers that were with you that night. Everyone is eternally greatful for all you've done. Until we meet again, keep on patroling the golden streets of heaven. You are forever in my thoughts and heart, Carla |
| CANTON �� Jesse Buryj wore a uniform for four years as a McKinley High School Marching Band baritone player. He was wearing the uniform of a soldier in Iraq when he died, presumably sometime Wednesday. The 21-year-old Canton native was killed in Iraq, firing more than 400 rounds at a dump truck trying to crash a U.S. Army checkpoint, an Army sergeant told his mother, Peggy Buryj, on Wednesday morning at her home on Smith Avenue NW. �They said, �I regret to inform you your son was killed in the line of duty,� � she recalled, wiping away tears. |
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| She was told that a Humvee in which he was riding came under attack at a checkpoint near Karbala. A dump truck driver tried to crash the checkpoint, and her son shot the driver of the truck, which crashed into the Humvee, she said. �Everyone was fine, but Jesse�s stomach was hurting him,� she was told. �They took him to a hospital where they found he had massive internal injuries, and he died on the operating table.� His mother said Army representatives were expected to tell her more today. Friends of the family stopped at the house throughout the day as the news spread in the community, a once-close-knit neighborhood where her son had played kickball and baseball in the streets with the other children. Tears fell as Peggy Buryj and her friend, Pat Confalone, hugged in the living room. They recalled how their sons � Jesse and Steve Confalone � were once on the front page of The Repository. The story told how Jesse had been saved after falling through the ice in Westbrook Park during �a warm snap in March� when the boys were 10 or 11 years old. They had been trying to retrieve a ball out on the ice, Confalone said. The photographer wanted to take their picture, but �they were too busy giggling and wouldn�t sit still,� Buryj said, chuckling. �They didn�t care about being in the paper. They just wanted to go play Nintendo.� �(The Repository) is back here, for what my boy did this time,� Buryj said, smiling. As Confalone left the house, Buryj hugged her, telling her, �You hug your boy for me twice tonight. Don�t let him out of your sight.� Buryj had last heard from her son on Easter Sunday. �I was hoping to get a call for Mother�s Day,� she said. He would have called her. �He was a well-mannered, well-rounded person. He was a parent�s dream,� said his sister, Angela. �If he ever did anything wrong, if he ever got in trouble, he always told on himself.� Jesse Buryj was a member of the Canton City Police Youth Corps and worked at Wendy�s restaurant on Cleveland Avenue, and played in the marching band � all for four years � before he joined the army during his senior year. �Jesse got to dot the �I� his senior year. He was so proud of that,� Buryj said, referring to the band�s practice of spelling �McKinley� on the field. �He loved his Bulldogs more than anything. He was a McKinley fan to the end.� And, she said, �He was an easy recruit; he wanted to go. I begged him and I pleaded with him not to go.� She wanted him to go to college. He chose to serve his country and he told them how he intended to do it. �He told the Army, �If I can�t be an MP (military police officer) and a paratrooper, I�m not going,� � she recalled. �He went to jump school and he got his wings.� It was an important step toward his lifelong goal. �Jesse wanted to become a military police officer so he could become a Canton police officer. That�s all he wanted � to be a Canton police officer. But he couldn�t be a Canton police officer until he was 21. So he joined the Army,� she said. �My son was a police officer � always.� Jesse turned 21 on Dec. 7. His mother pointed out that he was born on Pearl Harbor Day, which ushered in U.S. entry into World War II in 1941. After graduating in 2002, he began his stint in the service in September. His mother said he wanted to have the summer �to goof off.� He was a soldier with the 66th MP Co. in Fort Lewis, Wash., in October when he married his high school sweetheart, Amber Tichenor. The couple had met in marching band where she played piccolo, Buryj said. Their band director performed the marriage ceremony. She asked that Jesse�s wife, who is devastated by his death, not be reached for comment. �They were just married a few months and he had to leave,� she said. |
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| We will remember Buryj with pride Thursday, May 6, 2004 |
| Young soldier lived and died honorably in service to U.S. At a time when the national headlines are focused on a few U.S. soldiers who have compromised their integrity, Stark Countians have learned of the loss of one of their own, a young man who lived and died honorably in the service of his country. Jesse Buryj, a 2002 graduate of McKinley High School and a member of the 66th Military Police Co., has become the second Stark County soldier to die in the Iraq war. Buryj�s service in the Army was just the start of his ambitions. He hoped to join the Canton Police Department when he came home � home to Amber, his wife of seven months, and his parents in Canton. His family has been told he was defending a checkpoint near Karbala when he was critically wounded. Jesse Buryj�s family today is in the thoughts and prayers of more people than they can know. We hope they know that Stark County will remember their husband and son today with sadness, but with the pride that a good man earns when he becomes a good soldier. |
| 2002 McKinley grad dies serving country Thursday, May 6, 2004 By LORI MONSEWICZ Repository staff writer |
| Phone calls, e-mails from war zone help Canton soldier�s widow cope Friday, May 7, 2004 By LORI MONSEWICZ Repository staff writer |
| CANTON � Bits of information about the death of fallen U.S. soldier Jesse Buryj continued to filter in to his family on Thursday, a day after he was killed in Iraq. U.S. Army representatives called to help set up a full military funeral, although arrangements weren�t completed as of Thursday night. And other soldiers from his unit called and e-mailed messages here. |
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| �He touched a lot of lives; he was loved by a lot of people,� said his wife, Amber Buryj, his high school sweetheart whom he�d married only seven months ago. The Department of Defense confirmed to the public that the 21-year-old Canton native, a private first class in the U.S. Army who enlisted his senior year at McKinley High School, had died in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The department�s Web site said he died of injuries received Wednesday when his military vehicle was struck by a dump-truck driver who was shot while trying to run through a control or checkpoint. Robert Ackerman III, who is also in Buryj�s 66th Military Police Company based in Fort Lewis, Wash., was stationed in Iraq, too, and sent an e-mail about the incident home to his grandparents, Mim and Robert Ackerman Sr. in Malvern. Mim Ackerman said her grandson said that Buryj killed the dump-truck driver, but the dump truck kept coming until it ran into the vehicle Buryj was in. Buryj was thrown from his vehicle. �He kept shooting until he hit the ground,� said his sister-in-law, April Tichenor, who is Amber�s twin sister. �He emptied his gun� � an M-4 he used to fire off 400 rounds at the dump truck. Amber Buryj said that soldiers who were with him said that her husband initially �thought he had done something wrong. He was lying there injured and he kept saying, �I�m sorry, I�m sorry.� � He was taken by helicopter to Camp Juliet in Karbala and then flown to Baghdad, where he died, according to Ackerman�s e-mail. Army representatives told the Buryj family that he died on an operating table. Ackerman�s grandmother read the e-mail over the telephone: �He wrote, �Tomorrow, six soldiers and myself will be on the rifle team for his 21-gun salute.� � �Today after rehearsal, I went inside the theater where the ceremony will take place and saw Jesse�s Kevlar, M-4, dog tags and boots in ceremonial fashion. I then had to leave because I could no longer stand in the presence of his belongings. It hurt me too much. I still at this moment can�t quit crying every time I think about it.� Then he says, �P.S. I�m OK.� � She said the e-mail, sent from Babylon on Thursday, was the first she had heard from him since April 21. Amber Buryj last heard from her husband April 28. She was hoping to hear from him again soon, since his calls often came about a week apart. But the calls she received from Iraq, after the Army informed her that her husband had been killed, have come from his fellow soldiers. �He saved three people,� she said, wiping away tears. �Two of his teammates and another soldier. One of them has a 2-year-old daughter, and another one has a baby on the way.� She said her husband would have liked to have had a daughter when he returned stateside. �All he wanted was to come home, to have a child and he wanted to be a police officer,� she said, smiling through tears. Other soldiers told her that his room overseas was decorated with photographs of her and the one autographed picture she sent him of Mike Doss, who played football for McKinley High School and Ohio State University before playing for the Indianapolis Colts. Soldiers� wives have been calling her as well. �They call me to make sure I�m OK. The wife of one of the soldiers (Jesse) saved calls me every day and she cries every time she calls, thanking Jesse for saving her husband�s life,� she said as tears fell. �You never think it�s going to be you, you know? You never think it�s going to be your best friend and your husband.� A candlelight vigil for Buryj will be held at her family�s home at 352 19th St. NW at 9 p.m. Saturday, Tichenor said. |
| Repository / Joy Newcomb MILITARY WIFE. Amber Buryj�s husband, Jesse Buryj, was killed in action Wednesday at a checkpoint near Karbala, Iraq. The two were high school sweethearts who played in the McKinley High School marching band together. They married Oct. 18. |
| Buryj as a member of the Canton police youth corps. |
| Repository / Bob Rossiter MILITARY MOM. Peggy Buryj of Canton was notified Wednesday that her 21-year-old son, Army soldier Jesse Buryj, was killed in action at a checkpoint near Karbala, Iraq. |
| Repository / Bob Rossiter BULLDOG FAN. Jesse Buryj, a 2002 graduate, played baritone in the McKinley High School Marching Band for four years. |
| Music: I Can Only Imagine |
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| All contents propety of Carla M. Nichols (or authors as noted) and may not be used or reprinted unless express written consent from owners is granted. |
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| I Can Only Imagine MercyMe (lyrics to the song playing) I can only imagine what it will be like, when I walk by Your side... I can only imagine, what my eyes will see, when Your Face is before me! I can only imagine. I can only imagine. Surrounded by Your Glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance for you, Jesus? Or in awe of You, be still? Will I stand in Your presence, or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing 'Hallelujah!'? Will I be able to speak at all? I can only imagine! I can only imagine! I can only imagine, when that day comes, when I find myself standing in the Son! I can only imagine, when all I will do, is forever, forever worship You! I can only imagine! I can only imagine! Surrounded by Your Glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance for you, Jesus? Or in awe of You, be still? Will I stand in Your presence, or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing 'Hallelujah!'? Will I be able to speak at all? I can only imagine! Yeah! I can only imagine! Surrounded by Your Glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance for you, Jesus? Or in awe of You, be still? Will I stand in Your presence, or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing 'Hallelujah!'? Will I be able to speak at all? I can only imagine! Yeah! I can only imagine! I can only imagine! Yeah! I can only imagine!! Only imagine!!! I can only imagine. I can only imagine, when all I do is forever, forever worship You! I can only imagine. |