NADP News September 09, 2010

HAVERHILL, Mass. — By the time Dimitri Gavriel told family members he was joining the Marines, it was a done deal.

"He didn't say much to the family. It came as a surprise to us," said Chris Gavriel of the cousin 23 years his junior. "I think he did it to protect his mother and dad. . . . He didn't want to expose them to whatever fears they might have had."

Gavriel, a 1993 Timberlane Regional High School graduate and star athlete, was killed last week in Fallujah at age 29.

After he watched the World Trade Center collapse on Sept. 11, 2001, while he was on the cell phone with a friend who was in the towers — two of his friends died that day — that sense of duty to others extended to rising to the defense of his country, his family said.

Laid off from his Wall Street job after the attacks, he sought to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps, persisting by working out and losing weight after he was initially rejected. He joined in October 2003 and was deployed to Iraq last June.

"Dimmy," as he was called, broached the subject of enlisting with the Marines around the summer of 2002, according to Arek Czarnecki. His friendship with Gavriel began when Gavriel moved with his family to Atkinson in the fifth grade.

"Once he mentioned it, I knew he was going to do it," Czarnecki said yesterday.

When Gavriel graduated from Brown University, said Czarnecki, the two of them loaded a truck with Gavriel's belongings and drove to New York City, where Gavriel had taken a small studio apartment to embark on his financial career.

"We just packed up this little beat-up pickup truck like the Beverly Hillbillies," he said.

Czarnecki said Gavriel taught him how to hunt and fish.

"He made me a better person," he said. "He was a gentle bear. That's what we called him."

Around the towns bordering Haverhill, Mass., where his parents live now, and Plaistow, respect for the champion high-school wrestler was apparent yesterday in flags flown at half-staff. His parents, Greek immigrants Chris and Penelope Gavriel, yesterday were being interviewed by National Public Radio.

Rose Young knows the family from church, Holy Apostles Sts. Peter and Paul Greek Orthodox Church in Haverhill, where a memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday.

"He was a handsome boy; he was always joking," Young said. "Imagine him leaving his banking (job) to go fight for his country. I would be very proud to have a son like him. Yes, very proud."

Pete Doucet, a freshman on Timberlane's wrestling team when Gavriel was a senior and a captain, described him as "a leader by example."

Doucet recalled a team trip to Greece in which Gavriel acted as interpreter and showed his teammates around. Members of the team went cliff-jumping 40 feet into the Mediterranean.

"He was like the catalyst to make it happen," he said.

Doucet's mother, Cheryl Doucet, recalled Gavriel being respectful during wrestling matches, while other wrestlers might take an opportunity to psych out an opponent verbally.

"He was always such a gentleman," said. "Anyone would be glad to have him for a son."

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