Community Corner
Remembering 9/11: A Fallen Soldier Lives On
Everyday through Sunday Sept. 11, 2011, we will look at how local lives and events have been touched and shaped by a single date in time, 10 years later.
In the attached file photo, Lake Elsinore resident Courtney Faith Vera holds newborn Jack Monti Stevens Garner. Jack's father, Sgt. John Garner, named his first born after a fallen comrade who lost his life after coming under enemy fire in Afghanistan on June 21, 2006.
Recalling that fateful day, Sgt. Garner said bullets and rockets whizzed by so close they ripped his weapon out of his hand. Mortars were raining down and there was no visibility.
When the smoke began to clear, one could see the dead and dying casualties of war.
Find out what's happening in Lake Elsinore-Wildomarwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Staff Sgt. Jared Monti went in to help one of his men, but he would never make it back home. His dying words were, “I’ve made my peace with God. Tell my family that I love them.”
Vera is a Family Readiness Group Leader for the 79th Brigade Special Troops Battalion and Bravo Company, 79th Brigade Special Troops Battalion. She works to bring awareness to the public about military service men and women and their families. She also writes a column for Patch titled "For My Soldiers."
Find out what's happening in Lake Elsinore-Wildomarwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Vera was present for Jack's birth in 2011. to read her full account of Staff Sgt. Jared Monti and his namesake.
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