Dimitrios Gavriel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (June 2008)

This article may not meet the notability guideline for biographies. If you are familiar with the subject matter, please expand or rewrite the article to establish its notability. The best way to address this concern is to reference published, third-party sources about the subject. If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for redirection, merge or ultimately deletion, per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion.
This article has been tagged since April 2008.

This article or section is written like a memorial.
Please help rewrite this article from a neutral point of view to establish the notability of the subject.

Dimitrios Gavriel was a Wall Street analyst who joined the Marine Corps following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.

Gavriel was of Greek heritage and attended Timberlane Regional High School in Plaistow, New Hampshire, where he was a state championship heavyweight wrestler and captain of the team^[1]. He graduated from Brown University, where he studied neuroscience and organizational behavior and was a member of the wrestling team^[2]. He became a real estate securities analyst on Wall Street and worked for firms such as Bank of America Securities, Credit Suisse First Boston, and J.P. Morgan. On September 11th, 2001, four of Gavriel's friends lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on New York City. Upon being laid off in 2002, he decided to enlist in the Marine Corps. He was initially rejected because of his age (he was 27 at the time) and his old injuries from his wrestling career. He trained and lost 40 pounds, and in October of 2003 was finally accepted^[3].

The day before shipping out to boot camp he was offered a job in finance, but rejected it despite the pleas of his family. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and was shipped out to Iraq in 2004^[4]. He rose to the rank of Lance Corporal and was killed on November 19, 2004, during combat near Fallujah. He was 29 years old.

Gavriel was interred at Arlington National Cemetery on December 2, 2004^[5]. His funeral was attended by Senator John Kerry and Edward Kennedy. His father said of him: "He was an idealist and he put his love for country ahead of his love for himself."