“When they announced that all the troops were coming home, I lost it,’’ said Chamberlain, 69, a retired nurse. “My son wasn’t coming home, and that was the first time I let it sink in. I’ve just had this tremendous sadness.’’
Aubin, a 36-year-old captain, died with three other US Marines and eight British commandos on the night of March 20, 2003, in an American helicopter flying from Kuwait to Iraq. They were the first allied fatalities of the war, the first US service members of 4,484 who would die in a protracted and controversial struggle whose legacy remains unclear.
Aubin, a native of Skowhegan with a wife and two children, now in Texas, was hailed then as a hero in the fight to topple Saddam Hussein. Today - despite the passage of time and thousands of other dead - he is still remembered by friends, teachers, and co-workers in the no-frills corners of mid-state Maine.
But it is in Chamberlain’s home, a neat duplex not far from the Kennebec River, where Aubin’s memory resonates most strongly. The US flag that covered his casket is encased in a triangle of polished wood upon the wall. A Marine Corps blanket lies over a chair. A model of the CH-46E Sea Knight helicopter that carried him on his last mission sits on a living-room shelf.
“This has been a tough month,’’ Chamberlain said. “I was subconsciously waiting for him to come home.’’
Chamberlain’s doctor urged her to see a therapist. She fell into a deep depression, one punctuated by bursts of anger and fits of crying. She stopped attending daily Mass.
In the past, Chamberlain said, “I would watch others break down, and I never did that. I wondered what was wrong with me. Now, I’m forced to deal with it.’’
Her pain, however, is mixed with pride that has grown with the years, said Chamberlain, a woman of quiet, plain-spoken dignity. “The things he has done amazed us,’’ she said.
Marine Colonel Matthew Glavy, who served in the same squadron with Aubin in the late 1990s, recalled his friend as “a truly phenomenal Marine and a better person,’’ whose loss he still feels.
