 A slightly faded red and gold Marine Corps flag billowed in the frigid breeze yesterday, just above Bob Faulkner’s front door. Though this Swampscott firefighter never donned a Marine uniform, he flew the banner with all the requisite love and pride. Wednesday night, after the Marine envoy and a chaplain completed their sorrowful visit to Raymond and Rosalie Harris' home, Bob Faulkner raced to his neighbor's home. "Ray gave me the (Marine) flag, " Faulkner said yesterday afternoon, his voice faltering, “and asked me if I would fly it in honor of Jen. I was humbled.” Much of what Bob Faulkner has come to know of the extraordinary 28-year-old woman who grew up just down street, he has learned from the father who glowed in the reflection of his daughter's stunning accomplishments. “I know if Ray wasn't in such shock right now,” Faulkner said, “you guys would be sitting in his living room, hearing stories told by the proudest parent in this world. And no doubt, Ray and Rosalie would show you the shrines they have to Jen, the light of their lives. She was their only child.” “She wanted to fly,” recalled Swampscott police Detective Jim Schultz with a smile gracing his face, “so she chose the Navy and the Marines." Schultz recalled a story her father had mentioned about when he, Jen and Rosalie were on a flight together. Jen, who was little at the time, kept looking out the window and back at her parents. "I'm going to be flying a plane like this one day," she said, "and I'll have two seats for you and Mom right behind me," When Peter Sack switched on the TV news very early yesterday morning, the former principal of Swampscott High felt a pain tear through his chest. “Unfortunately, I can't say I was overcome by a sense of disbelief,” Sack said, “The path Jen had chosen was incredibly dangerous and yet . . . so singularly heroic. It's just so painful to realize she's gone." “When someone dies, reputations often tend to get inflated,” he added softly, “but when it came to Jen, all her achievements and accomplishments were real. She easily could have gone to any of the Ivy League schools. She was destined for greatness. It was clear to everyone in the school. As a senior, she won both citizenship awards, class secretary for all four years, played in the band, joined every club, volunteered at the library. She won the Neil and Jeffrey Rossman Scholarship and a Swampscott Parent-Teacher Council Scholarship, both presented at her high school graduation in 1996." “You know, I am lucky enough to have two sons, healthy and on their own now,” Sack said, “but if I could have a daughter, I’d want her to be just like Jen. She was goodness and grace incarnate.” After graduation from the Naval Academy, where she requested to be commissioned as an officer of Marines, Harris got training then in Quantico, Va., Pensacola, Fla., and Corpus Christi, Texas, before being assigned to the Marine base at Camp Pendleton in California. Harris was assigned to HMM-364, the “Purple Foxes,” a storied Marine squadron with a history that pre-dates the Vietnam War, the era when the CH-46 helicopter, also called the “Phrog,” was first introduced. The Purple Foxes were deployed to Iraq for the first phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom to fly missions carrying supplies, troops and medical evacuees from bases in Iraq and Kuwait. Her first tour was from February to October in 2003. Then she got a year off before returning to Iraq in January 2005, coming home in September to California and then Swampscott. Swampscott hosted a “Welcome Home” party for Harris last summer and she kept in regular contact with folks back home, Detective Jim Schultz said. “The Police Department sent her a care package, and she just sent one back,” he said. He related that in exchange for the baby wipes, soap, lip balm and regular essentials desert-stationed Marines request, Harris returned the favor by sending the Police Department a package with her squadron's T-shirts, a flag that flew over a post in Iraq, and squadron patches. The package arrived about a week and a half ago. Harris was aware, even in the fall of 2005, that she would likely be sent back into a combat area. "I'll probably be sent back to Iraq after a while, but I'm not really sure," she said then. "But when I go back to Camp Pendleton, that's what I'll be doing: prepping to go back." Harris says her career choice surprised her family, given that the nearest connection she can make was a grandfather who served in the Italian navy. "But my family has been very supportive and Swampscott has been great," she said. Before she went back to Camp Pendleton in 2005, the Marine Corps League, which meets monthly at the VFW Post on Pine Street, and the VFW joined in a ceremony to honor Harris. "It was great to have them welcome me home," Harris says. "The North Shore has a really great and supportive group of Marines of all ages and they were wonderful." Marine Capt. Jennifer Harris was the first woman to be assigned to
HMM-364 as a pilot and became the first Massachusetts military woman since
the Vietnam War to die in a war zone one week before she was due to come
home.
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