MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- Maj. Kevin Shea was a gentle yet commanding leader and a shining star of higher learning, according to mourners who attended his memorial here Friday and others who knew him down through the years. He also was a champion of parenting and a wrecking ball on the rugby pitch, they said.
About 250 family members, friends and co-workers turned out for Shea's send-off - one of at least three memorials for him around the globe. Shea, from Seattle, an Air Force Academy graduate and veteran of both wars in Iraq, died Sept. 14 - his 38th birthday - in a rocket attack on Camp Fallujah, where he was serving Regimental Combat Team 1 as a communications and information systems officer.
Shea, selected as a lieutenant colonel before he died, will be posthumously promoted this week when he's laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., where he was born. He also was nominated for the Bronze Star Medal only a month before his death.
"He led from the front and he led by example," Lt. Col. Austin Renforth, a longtime Shea friend and fellow rugby player, said to the gathered mourners. He then turned to Shea's children and added, "Your father was brave, and it was an honor to fight alongside him."
A day earlier and thousands of miles away at Camp Fallujah, RCT-1 members also memorialized Shea.
"Lt. Col. Shea was a role model Marine. He was everything a Marine should be," said Lance Cpl. John H. Wells, 20, from Choctaw, Okla., and a radio operator with RCT-1.
Meanwhile, back in Annapolis, Md., where Shea taught electrical engineering and coached rugby before being sent off to war, a highly anticipated rugby match between two staunch rivals, the Naval Academy and Air Force - where Shea was a standout defensive end on the football team - has been canceled. The Navy team, ranked No. 3 in the nation, bowed out to attend Shea's memorial and interment later this week at Arlington. Players voted unanimously to forgo the game in honor of Shea, according to Maj. Jeff Nagel, who first met Shea when the two played for the Camp Pendleton Ghostriders in the early 1990s.
Shea, who already possessed a master's degree in electrical engineering, nonetheless was declared an honorary graduate by his students at the academy as a token of their esteem, Nagel said.
"It's a rare honor (bestowed for) having one of the biggest impressions of anyone here," Nagel said.
Shea also made a big impression as a Marine leader, Nagel said. He had all the raw tools - humility, compassion, intelligence, strength. But despite all those attributes, he never rested on his laurels, Nagel said.
"Kevin is one of a rare breed, whether as a rugby player or an officer," Nagel said via telephone from his office at Annapolis. "He had sheer talent, but unlike a lot of others, he was always willing to put in the time. That's why he rose to the top."
Shea's refinement in more civil circles belied his aggressiveness on the rugby field. A man well over 6 feet tall and a lean 200-plus pounds, Shea could pound carcasses with a fury few players could match.
That's why Shea was enlisted to play opposite Al Framo, a fearsome Marine suiting up for Eglin Air Force Base, in a quarterfinal round of the Military National Championships back in 1994, Nagel said.
Framo - a "complete animal" on the rugby pitch, Nagel said - was battering the Ghostriders. They needed an equalizer.
Enter Shea. Subsequently, Shea and Framo converged in an "atom smashing" collision that brought a hush over the entire pitch.
"They were spinning like tops. The game just stopped," said Nagel, adding he'd never seen such a violent collision before or since.
Shea's sheer power hints at the only criticism ruggers ever leveled against him. A few accused him of being a bit of a ball hog. Nagel disagrees, but understands why some who didn't really know Shea might view him that way.
Shea, a surprisingly swift open-field runner and a bulldozer down near pay dirt, just knew that sometimes, when the team was struggling for an offensive breakthrough, he often could provide it.
"He wasn't a great passer, but he could run through you. He was an incredible athlete," Nagel said about Shea, who played defensive end at the Air Force Academy and appeared in the 1989 Freedom Bowl.
Shea was not only one of the Corps' top ruggers, he was "a Marine's Marine" by multiple accounts, a "very humble guy" and "true warrior," Nagel said.
Shea cut his teeth in the Corps as a junior officer in force recon, the Marine Corps' vaunted special forces.
Nonetheless, he never talked himself up and wasn't given to barroom bombast, even though rugby players typically reconvene at a nearby pub after games. Shea would sometimes attend but wouldn't stay long.
"He was sociable but not gregarious," said Bill Warren, the Ghostriders' longtime manager.
But he didn't need a whole lot of face time to win folks' allegiance. People knew he was special.
"People really thought the world of that guy. They really respected him," Warren said. "He had the ability to have you follow him and get you to do things he wanted you to do without coercion. He could get people to act."
Like when he had players running on their knees during practice - a training technique he borrowed from force recon.
Shea's "ramrod frame" and force recon roots evoked fear on the pitch.
"He was ... a hardcore kind of guy. His physical presence was so imposing, but he wasn't once you knew him," said Lt. Col. Sam Pelham, who played with Shea here in the early 1990s and coached with him at the Naval Academy. "He was very kind and gentle - a pleasure to be with.
"It's such a loss for the Marine Corps and for rugby," Pelham said.
One of Shea's troops in Iraq echoed Pelham.
"Lt. Col. Shea will be missed a lot. It is going to take another great person to fill his shoes," said Lance Cpl. Chance P. Solomon, 19, a radio operator with RCT-1.
But nothing can match the loss suffered by Shea's wife, Ami, and two children (Brenna, 10, and Michael, 7) who were blessed with a model father, Nagel said.
"If I put in half the time he put in with his sons, my son will have nothing to complain about," Nagel said.
Lance Cpl. Samuel B. Valliere and Lance Cpl. Miguel Carrasco contributed to this story. E-mail LaMay at lamaybe@pendleton.usmc.mil.