These are photos of Ryans service on the 16th of January. Please watch...there are many photos. He was killed on January 5, 2006.....6 days after his 25 birthday and 3 days before he was scheduled to come home. He is a medic with the 1/76th 4BDE 3ID out of Ft Stuart Georgia.
Movies
This is a video that was taken with Ryan's camera. Ryan is in the middle of the video standing in formation.
Television
This is the trip we made to pick Ryan up at the Airport around a 400 mile trip from Pendleton to Portland and back. This had to be done right. His body was flown into Portland on January 14, 2006 at 9:00 pm. We wanted to pick my brother up in style. So, we were going to escort him with two hum v's (don't ask how we got them) and my truck with Ryan's close friends and family riding along. We also had a special frame fabricated for the flag in the back of my truck...ended up being around 4oo lbs of steel. We left Pendleton Oregon around 12:30 and then we met the two hum v's in the Pilot station outside of Stanfield at 1:00 - 1:30 pm. The idea was to have the Hum v's escort the hearse and my truck. We left traveling down I-84 towards Pendleton and had to make a stop at Bigg's Junction and then at the Dalles. You couldn't miss usone of the hum v's was painted red white and blue, my truck is red with a large flag in it, the hearse, and a green hum v. People had to know what we were doing that passed us that night.....some waved and some just starred. We then stopped at Sharis at the Portland Airport and ate dinner waiting to pick up Ryan. I think we got there around 5:30 to 6 and left for the airport around 8 to pick my brother up at 9. We got to go out on the runway and carry Ryan off the airplane. This was the hardest thing I have ever done....... His friends and I all carried Ryan out of the airplane and placed him in the hearse. We left the airport around 9:30 with the hum v's, hearse, my truck, and two police cars all lighted up escorting us out of Portland. Wow....I think about everyone was in tears for the first 50 miles... The two cop cars left us as soon as we got out of Portland. Then we continued to drive back stopping once at Bigg's. Once we hit Arlington, we were escorted with a lighted up cop car and eventually we had two or three by the time we hit Pendleton around 1 to 1:30 am. The the Pendleton Police joined in and escorted us to the morturary. Along the way through town there were small pockets of people waving flags! This was a real tough day and a event I will forever remember.
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I miss you Bro! My brother Ryan Doran Walker was born December 30, 1980 in Pendleton Oregon. We are about 20 months apart. He is my only brother. We grew up 14 miles outside of Pendleton near Meacham off I-84. Talk about a great place to grow up. Building forts, shooting off the back deck, and all the pets a kid could want. We always had the infamous birthday parties on the mountain and always had pizza at Big Johns. No one could forget them. Hiking out to the freeway and throwing snowballs at the trucks and all the pine cone battles and bottlerocket wars. No sleep with movies and video games all night. Good times I will always remember! Our Spring breaks usually ended up going somewhere we could buy illegal fireworks. That was always a big deal when coming to the Walker house on the Mountain. Once I went to OSU and Ryan started at Chemekata in Salem we were only 35 miles apart. He enjoyed coming down to the house on campus and partying it up on the weekends.
Hey!! It was good seeing you today well i guess it would be yesterday!! Which by the way I got a sunburn for the time I was out there lol. Anyways it was great seeing you!! Hopefully I will be able to talk to you more now. Anyways hope that you had a safe trip back!! And I will talk at you laters!!
Lol, he's good. A married man now finally =P Truck is doing good, just sitting right now. We've been too busy lately, and he won't drive it without re-torqueing the head studs first (he learned his lesson lol). That, and with diesel the way it is...I'm not too unhappy about it being a lawn ornament for now!
