It's nice to be surprised

July 7, 2009 12:35 am

The stolen cannonball, seen here, has been replaced by a new one.

IAM grateful, this week, that people still have the ability to surprise me. I've spent the past 17 years as a journalist, and feel sometimes as though I've seen it all.

I've been part of coverage about murderers and child molesters, terrorists and philandering politicians. And what I haven't seen myself, I've read about or watched on the news.

So when I learned June 28 that someone had stolen a cannonball from the grave of Spotsylvania Marine Sgt. Joshua Frazier, I was disgusted, but not surprised.

Rick Frazier went to his son's King George grave early on what would have been Josh's 27th birthday. The cannonball--something Josh had told his father and mother, Shelia Cutshall, he wanted if something happened to him--was gone.

Josh had to change units to go back to Iraq for a second deployment, and had decided to stay for a third. Lots of the men in Iraq had wives and children, he said. Some were just boys. Their lives, he said, seemed to be worth more than his.

Josh was killed by sniper fire on Feb. 6, 2007.

His family had his headstone specially designed to accommodate the 12-pound solid shot cannonball, and Frazier himself used epoxy to secure it to his son's stone. A final wish fulfilled.

I wrote a story about the missing cannonball for the July 1 Free Lance-Star. I hoped knowing what the cannonball meant to the family might shame the thief into returning it, but I wasn't optimistic. That's not how people are, I thought. At least the story might make it hard for him to sell it and profit from the pain he'd caused the family.

What happened next not only surprised me, but warmed my heart.

By 10 a.m. the next day, four offers had come in to replace the cannonball--all from strangers--local folks who never met Josh or his family.

Frazier accepted one Wednesday night from Ron Swaney, a Fredericksburg cop and retired Marine.

That same night, a young Marine who'd heard about Frazier and his son from a friend, gave him a service coin--the only one he'd ever earned. Its chipped, worn edges were proof of its value to the young man.

But it didn't stop there.

More offers rolled in Wednesday night and Thursday morning. On Thursday, someone showed up at Frazier's work with two cannonballs in his truck and told him to pick one.

There were more than a dozen offers to replace Josh's cannonball. By Thursday night, only four days after it was discovered missing, a cannonball was once again resting on Josh's headstone, right where he'd asked it to be.

Frazier's friend Steve Robinson affixed it to the stone in a way he's certain it won't be taken again.

Josh's family is profoundly grateful for the outpouring of support from this community. And I'm grateful for the reminder of how much good there is in the world, despite all the attention we give the bad.

I'm not sure this kind of thing would have happened someplace else.

But maybe that's just my journalist's cynicism talking. And maybe, yet again, people would surprise me.

Laura L. Hutchison: 540/374-5485
Email: lhutchison@freelancestar.com