Veterans Day has special meaning for Harris family

SWAMPSCOTT – The family and friends of Jennifer J. Harris should be celebrating her 29th birthday this week, but instead, will be taking part in a ceremony tonight when the North Shore Marine Corps League Detachment will officially be named the Capt. Jennifer J. Harris Marine Corps League Detachment.Harris would have turned 29 this past Tuesday but was killed in February during her third tour of duty in Iraq – just days before she was scheduled to return home.Harris, a 1996 graduate of Swampscott High School, was one of seven U.S. troops who died when the U.S. Marine transport helicopter she was piloting was shot down by insurgents northwest of Baghdad.The ceremony will be part of the Marine Corps Birthday Ball tonight at the Franco American Hall on Western Avenue in Lynn.”This certainly has been a tough week for us as Jennifer would have been 29 on Tuesday,” Harris’ father, Ray Harris said. “Jen was one of the greatest people in the world. She was very humble and did an awful lot for the people out there. I could go on for hours telling you everything she did, but she was just one of those people who would take the shirt off her back if she thought it would help.”Swampscott Veterans Agent James Schultz, who made the motion to change the name of the detachment to honor Harris, said he hopes the people of Swampscott turn out in large numbers Sunday (11 a.m.) at the monument to honor Harris, Army Specialist Jared Raymond, who was killed Sept. 19, 2006, and to all veterans past and present.”This is the first time that Swampscott has lost two people since World War II,” Schultz said. “Obviously this Veterans Day has special meaning to all of us in town.”Schultz said Swampscott has two members of the military – Alex Stone and Michael Finer – serving in Iraq now, and said he has been notified by family members that at least four others from town are scheduled to be deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan in the next six months.”Obviously (the naming of the Marine Corps League detachment) is an honor for all of us, but the whole thing never should have happened,” Ray Harris said. “This whole situation has to come to an end.”Ray Harris believes that President George W. Bush should be spending every waking moment trying to find a way to get everybody home, but does not believe that is what he is doing.”We simply should drop the whole thing,” Ray Harris said. “If I were a parent of one of these kids scheduled to deploy I would just tell the government they are not going back.”