Campaign officials confirmed the victims as Wellstone's wife, Sheila, and daughter, Marcia, campaign staff members Will McLaughlin, Tom Lapic and Mary McEvoy and two unidentified pilots.
'Minneapolis Star Tribune
(Oct. 25, 2002)
When I was at St. Thomas Academy, a military school, I was in the company known as the Honor Guard. We would perform funerals, wakes and public events on behalf of our school. One of those events happened to be the St. Paul Winter Carnival parade, where we would march through downtown St. Paul in our uniforms. Now, when you combine cold weather, teenagers in military uniforms and drunk bystanders, something bad will happen. As it turned out, a bunch of drunks began screaming obscenities questioning our sexuality and sexual practices. It's times like these when you wonder why you are out there in the first place, absorbing this razzing and criticism for wearing a uniform. I was mortified, wishing that I was at home, watching HBO and drinking copious amounts of hot chocolate. Their taunts were getting louder and louder, more and more abrasive, leaving me more and more petrified, right until I heard...
\GUARD, FORWARD, MARCH!""
The Honor Guard Commander was looking straight at those drunken yokels, responding with such a loud and authoritative command that even the most boisterous of bystanders shut up. And we marched on, looking at those guys who now were the ones who wished they were somewhere else. Not to say we completely put them in their place, but our commander made the statement for us, ""Yell all you want. You will never take away our pride."" And I had never felt prouder to be in the Honor Guard. I did a fair amount of events after that, some good and some bad, but I never again lost my pride in what I did.
Will McLaughlin was the commander that day. And to this day and the next, I thank him for showing me what pride was. It wasn't a cocky swagger or taunting the other guy. It was standing tall when it seems like the whole world is screaming at you and still holding your head high.
When I was a freshman and a sophomore, I was intimidated by Will. He had this stern face which everyone hoped they wouldn't have on them. He was the one who had everyone's attention when he spoke. He was also the guy who would always make people feel welcome around him. He was the one who could tell a scared 15-year-old kid who had two left feet that he would march well in the upcoming parade. In other words, he was a true leader in every sense of the word.
I ran into Will after he graduated from STA from time to time. Whether it was at an STA event or around town, he would stop what he was doing and catch up with me about our lives, our dreams and our upcoming plans. Last I heard of him, he was the personal assistant to U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., a plum job for a 23-year-old, but one which I knew we deserved.
When I came into the Cardinal office and heard about Wellstone's plane, I was shocked. But when I heard about Will being on that plane, I couldn't move. The guy who you went to high school with, the guy who helped teach you about pride and bearing, the one guy who invited you (the dorkiest sophomore in school) to his graduation party and the guy who never talked down to you and treated you as an equal and a friend is gone.
And I'm here in this office, trying to think what I should do next. Life goes on, and there will be more tragedies that will occur in my life and the lives of those who I care about. Although I wasn't the closest to him, I still remember him to be a good person whom I believed was going to do great things in this life. And for this moment, I don't want to think about midterms, parties and other things I thought were the most important things in my life...
...because a good man just lost his.
