Fallen Marine Is Saluted by Family, Friends, Police Peers

More than 1,000 mourners paid their last respects Thursday to Sgt. Edward C. Smith, a part-time reserve Anaheim police officer and full-time Marine who was killed in action outside Baghdad.

The memorial service was the Police Department’s way of saying goodbye to its fallen hero, Chief Roger Baker said. It was complete with bagpipes, hundreds in a police honor guard, a helicopter fly-over and gun salute.

Officer Steve Davis, Smith’s partner, struggled to hold back tears during a eulogy in which he remembered Smith -- known in the department as “Smitty” or “Gunney” -- as one of a kind, a special man willing to drop everything to help others.

Yet, Davis added during a lighter moment, Smith had his idiosyncrasies, especially those that piqued Davis’ interest while the two rode around in their patrol car.

“Gunney had issues with directions,” Davis told mourners. “When we would get in the car, he would pull out his maps and compasses.”

A map went on the dash, a compass near the steering wheel. Smith also had a compass on his wrist strap.

“I would tell him: ‘You need all this? And you’re the guy calling out coordinates for the bombs?’ ” Davis said.

Deployment in Iraq was to cap Smith’s 20-year military career. Hired by Anaheim in 1999 after graduating from Palomar Police Academy, the sergeant -- a member of the 2nd Tank Battalion, Fox Company, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force -- was to join the Anaheim Police Department full time on his return.

The department expected to hire him in August, Baker said, adding that Smith’s military experience and maturity at 39 already had won him a spot as a reserve officer on the special-tactics detail.

Smith also was a veteran of Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield who had been named Orange County’s 2001 Reserve Police Officer of the Year.

Davis recalled that even before he met Smith, a supervisor told him his new partner did reconnaissance as a Marine.

“He said the guy can parachute into your house, enter it and make a sandwich and you’ll never know he was there,” Davis said. “I knew right then that this guy was one bad dude.”

And so the relationship began between Davis -- the white cop, younger and bald -- and Smith, African American and older, more thinker than talker. When Davis described Smith’s family -- including his widow, Sandra (“His chief and commander”) -- and the love he had for each member, his voice cracked. Davis said Smith taught his boys, Nathan, 12, and Ryan, 10, how to become the men of the house when dad was on maneuvers or deployed.

He had a special relationship with daughter Shelby, 8. Though she was the youngest, he bought her a punching bag and set it up in the garage. He trained with her and bragged that if the two older boys ever ran into trouble, Shelby would take care of them.

Smith also had an impact on Marines in his command. One father wrote to the Smith family, Davis said, that his son, who was in Smith’s unit in Iraq, went out of this way to praise the sergeant.

“Nearly every letter from the man’s son had at least one paragraph devoted to Smith,” Davis said.

Before the sergeant’s death, the father bought a religious cross with a chain and mailed it to his son with instructions to give it to Smith for “protecting his boy.”

The family and close friends later attended a private service at Camp Pendleton. Interment was in Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego.