Farewell, Sgt. Passino Farewell, Sgt. Passino (June 11, 2004)

by Jeb Bing

A rmy Sgt. Matt Passino leaves for his family home on Michigan's Upper Peninsula on Sunday. A popular speaker at school assemblies and active member of local military support groups, Passino is a familiar face and voice to hundreds who have heard him talk more favorably about America's role in Iraq than what he considers the mostly negative stories conveyed by the media. Passino moved here just four years ago when he left 12 years of active duty in the Marines to marry Leanne Montgomery, a single mom who lived here with her son Justin, now 16 and completing his sophomore year at Foothill High. Passino brought along his daughter Anna, who is now 9 and finishing second grade at Fairlands Elementary. He joined the California National Guard so that he could continue earning credit toward a military retirement, but to those who knew them, they were fun-loving newlyweds enjoying the good life in Pleasanton.

That ended shortly after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Matt's 870th Military Police Company unit was activated and deployed to Fort Lewis, Wash., to replace regular Army troops heading for the Afghanistan war zone. It was another 10 months before Matt Passino was demobilized and came home to resume work as a purchasing and warehouse manager for a Livermore flooring company.

Then, in February 2003, the 870th was reactivated again and sent to Iraq. It would be the last time he saw Leanne. While she coped with being a single mom again, she faced growing financial, emotional and health problems that she kept mostly to herself. The Pleasanton Military Families Support Group, headed by local Realtor Chris Miller and Tracey Buescher, whose own husband Col. Christopher Buescher was at the time also in Iraq, kept in touch with Leanne and provided care and comfort. That included money for Christmas gifts for the family and a new furnace to replace a broken one in their unheated home. Making a yellow ribbon for Matt Passino to hang on Main Street, Miller also made one, at Leanne's request, for the sergeant's father Richard Passino, who lives in Manistique, Mich.

Passino was on patrol in Baghdad when he received word that his wife had been rushed to ValleyCare Medical Center suffering from liver failure. He had talked to her just two days earlier, and though not feeling well, she didn't mention anything serious. With Red Cross emergency orders, Passino made the long flight home, arriving here Feb. 12, the day after Leanne died. Within days, he had the kids back on their feet and in school, making plans to move back to his father's home in Michigan, and near his brothers and their families. He agreed, however, to let the children finish the school year, went back to work, and then joined in the Pleasanton support groups that had helped Leanne in her crises.

Teaming up with Col. Buescher, who had returned to civilian life in Pleasanton earlier, the two also launched a series of presentations to students in local elementary, middle and high schools about their service in Iraq. Passino is especially passionate about "setting the record straight," as he calls it, talking about the good and successful work Americans have under way in Iraq to balance what he believes are terrible negative slants in media reports about the effort. He has been especially effective in encouraging students, as part of classroom projects and at home, to send letters and packages to the troops on a regular basis - even such simple, yet appreciated gifts like Post-Its, gum, nail clippers and hand-drawn pictures of the students. Mail call, he tells them, is the best part of a soldier's day, which he said is why he appreciates the Pleasanton Weekly that we send to all those from Pleasanton who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although we'll miss Passino and his good work here, he'll be carrying Pleasanton's success back to the shores of Lake Michigan where he plans to launch a similar military support group and go on the speaking circuit at local schools. >

E-mail a friend a link to this story.