DOB/DOD: May 5, 1980 (Krung Thep, Thailand) – March 23, 2003; 22 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Unmarried
LOCAL ADDRESS: Oswegatchie Road; Waterford
ENLISTMENT: July 6, 1999
MILITARY OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALTY: 1833; Assault Amphibious Vehicle (AAV) Crewman
UNIT: Headquarters & Service Company, 2nd Anti-Aircraft Battalion, 2nd Marine Division; Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
FAMILY: Born to Tanit “Tan” Chanawongse (1952-) and Anutarapon Tan Patchem (1951-). Stepfather Paul Patchem (1966-). One brother, Kemapasse Chanawongse (1978-).
DECORATIONS: Awarded the Purple Heart Medal, Combat Action Ribbon, Navy Presidential Unit Citation, Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and the Navy Sea Service Deployment Ribbon.
CIRCUMSTANCES: Corporal Chanawongse was killed by an enemy round when he was running to retrieve ammunition in a battle to secure a bridge in Nasiriyah, Iraq.
Waterford High School; Class of 1999
From The Hartford Courant on April 17, 2003
By Kim Martineau | Courant Staff Writer
WATERFORD — Tan Patchem woke her husband early last Sunday. Several missing Marines had been found alive in Iraq. Her son, she hoped, was among them. She learned later that Cpl. Kemaphoom “Ahn” Chanawongse was not in the group. By Monday morning, all of the missing Marines from his unit had been confirmed dead — all except Ahn. She was making dinner on Tuesday when a Navy chaplain and two Marines appeared at her door, the same men who had come three weeks earlier to report her son missing. Before they said a word, she knew. The images she had held on to — Chanawongse hiding in an abandoned building or recovering under the watch of a sympathetic Iraqi — were wrong. Her son’s remains had been identified. “I think that the whole time I have hope, I know there’s a chance he might not be coming back, too,” she said Wednesday. “It’s like I prepare myself for the worst.” Chanawongse went missing on March 23 after his amphibious assault vehicle was ambushed near Nasiriyah as the unit tried to take control of a bridge over the Euphrates River. A week later, three of the eight Marines missing from his unit were confirmed dead. As the weeks rolled by and her son’s status remained unchanged, Tan Patchem’s hope grew. Each morning, she flipped on the news for an update on the war. Then, she and her husband, Paul, knelt on cushions in their family room by a statue of Buddha and prayed. Before bed each night, they prayed again. They filled the hours in between looking at photographs and old letters and reading the hundreds of notes that have poured in, expressing support for the man known to his fellow Marines as “Chuckles.” On Wednesday, a steady stream of friends and family filled the house. Steve Cavan arrived in his car, decorated with yellow ribbons. He pointed to a recent photo of Chanawongse taped to the dashboard next to the speedometer. It showed Ahn grinning wildly after a night out with his friends. “We were just living our lives out as kids,” he said. “That’s how I’ll always remember him.” On Wednesday, Tan and Paul Patchem met with Marine Corps officials to make funeral arrangements. The Mae to Waterford. For three days, Buddhist monks will chant prayers for Chanawongse. His cremated remains will then be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. “It is a place for all the brave soldiers, she said. “He is one of them.” Waterford First Selectman Paul Eccard said the town will hold a memorial service after the burial. “Now that we know the news is what we desperately hoped it would not be, we will do everything we can to support the family,” he said. Governor John G. Rowland requested that flags in the state fly at half-staff until after Chanawongse’s memorial service. On April 6, a Sunday, Tan Patchem drove with her niece to Boston to celebrate the Thai New Year at a Buddhist temple. She brought a large portrait of her son in military dress, which was posted prominently, as the monks chanted a special prayer for Chanawongse’s return. “It meant a lot to me,” she said on Monday. “It’s the way we do it in Thailand.” In his last letter home, Chanawongse described the boredom of waiting for the war to begin. He told his parents how he and the other Marines had improvised a game of baseball from a ball of rags and a stick. He complained about the desert dust and how, minutes after taking a shower, he was dirty again. To pass the time, he painted the word “sandstorm” across the side of his amphibious tractor, which the Marines call an Amtrak. Friends remember Chanawongse as an easygoing kid with a bright smile, the “Thai import with the baby face,” as he called himself on his website. A prank that seemed innocuous at the time – bringing a plastic gun to school — landed him a year suspension in ninth grade. They seemed harsh, but Chanawongse was not one to hold a grudge. “He never got mad at no one,” his mother said. “He never complained.” Tan Patchem was surprised when her son enlisted in the Marines in 1998, days after graduating from Waterford High School. He had an artistic side and was proficient in photography, drawing cartoons, and making elaborate stickers out of vinyl. One sticker, a black prisoner of war/missing in action emblem, was so skillfully done that a Vietnam veteran noticed it on Tan’s bumper and asked where he could get one. She asked her son to make a second sticker for the veteran, and he did. In hindsight, she now recognizes the makings of a Marine. With his first paycheck, Chanawongse bought a sword. Later, an archer’s bow. He strung together plastic milk cartons and hung them in the yard to use for target practice. He often packed his dogs, Mo and Snoop, into a canoe and floated down the creek that runs along the back of his house into Long Island Sound. “Why the Marines?” she asked him. “The Marines are the best.” He told her. She reminded him of the training, challenges, and dangers he would face. But he knew what he wanted, and his friends secretly envied him. “I never thought he’d have the courage to go,” said a longtime friend, Troy Bergeson. “But when he came back from boot camp, it’s like he grew up overnight. He was built. He was a lot stronger looking. He was proud of himself and what he was doing.” He was also following a family tradition. His grandfather was a high-ranking officer in the That Air Force, and his uncle, also Thai, was a decorated pilot. His stepfather, Paul Patchem, was a former Navy electrician. His family noticed the change when he became a Marine. “He had a mission,” a relative, Kim Atkinson, said Wednesday. “He had found himself.” The Thai press watched Tan Patchem’s wait for her son to come home closely, dubbing her the “Iron Mom.” Chanawongse moved to the U.S. when he was 9 and has extended family in Thailand. His older brother, Awe, 24, has been studying business there for the last year. When news first hit that Chanawongse was missing, a line of reporters filed into the Patchems’ house. The spotlight waned as the weeks passed. But on Monday, the reporters returned, and it wasn’t hard to read between the lines. The military had more remains that had yet to be identified. Even as the odds that Chanawongse might be recovered alive grew more improbable, Tan Patchem remained hopeful. She took solace in an image that played around the world last week: the statue of Saddam Hussein tumbling to the ground. “It is very good when we see Saddam’s statue come down by his own people,” she said. “That means what we are doing is the right thing.” “He had a short life, but he was happy, and he made the best out of that, and he died with honor and made everybody proud.” She said, “Even though he passed away, he passed away as a hero.”
From The Day (New London, CT) on April 30, 2003
ANGEL, HERO, and IMMIGRANT
A fallen soldier is laid to rest
The picture on The Day’s front page Tuesday said something about loss and the very nature of America itself. The photograph, taken by Day photographer Sean D. Elliot, showed Buddhist monks and Marines by the coffin of Marine Corporal Kemaphoom “Ahn” Chanawongse of Waterford as he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Corporal Chanawongse was a hero and, perhaps, something more. “Ahn” was now an angel. His stepfather, Paul Patchem, said. “I am honored to have him as a son,” he said. Angel and hero, Cpl. Chanawongse was also an immigrant. He came to the United States from Thailand when he was nine years old. America is home to thousands of people who have traveled from the farthest corners of the Earth, all holding different religions and different beliefs. Yet, when an immigrant is ready to take the pledge to become a citizen, he becomes, like Corporal Chanawongse, just as American as anyone descended from the Pilgrims. That the experience is so common says something good about our country. It works because we have a Constitution that knits together people from diverse nationalities and different religions. Perhaps most of all, it works because we have people like Corporal Chanawongse willing to die to defend us and those values that bring us all together, which makes us one people. Donations made in the memory of Corporal Chanawongse would go, in part, toward building a Buddhist temple in Boston. The closest such temple is now in New York City. That would make him happy, his family said. Monday, when Corporal Chanawongse was buried as a hero, Dr. Chuen Phangcham prayed that he be reborn in another life. “May all be free from suffering. May all be happy.” On a day when grief contrasted with the beauty of spring, it was a fitting prayer indeed.
WEBMASTER NOTE: Prior to Ahn Chanawongse’s burial, a Buddhist service was held at a Washington funeral home. A traditional Thai Buddhist ceremony has up to three parts of the funeral service, each lasting about 45 minutes. The three components of any Buddhist funeral ceremony are sharing, the practice of good conduct, and developing a calm mind, or meditation.
From The Day (New London, CT) on June 26, 2003
By Patricia Daddona | Day Staff Writer
WATERFORD CORPORAL WAS KILLED IN FIREFIGHT WHILE HELPING COMRADES
WATERFORD — Knowing her son died a hero in the war in Iraq was not enough for Tan Patchem. She wanted to know how 22-year-old Kemaphoom “Ahn” Chanawongse, who was awarded the Purple Heart, died in combat. About three weeks ago, she found out. A letter from Captain William E. Blanchard, one of Chanawongse’s superiors in the Company A Assault Amphibious Battalion, finally arrived at the Patchem home in Waterford after a month in transit from Iraq. This past Sunday, Tan Patchem, her husband, Paul, and other family members heard the details again firsthand at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, from Blanchard himself. The 22-year-old Marine was not ambushed in Iraq, as initially reported, but died in the midst of battle, helping carve a safe path across a canal bridge to Baghdad for coalition forces, Blanchard said. His words are also recorded on videotape by the Patchems at Camp Lejeune, where Chanawongse first began his military training 3 ½ years ago. Chanawongse and two fellow Marines had been traveling north in one of the many amphibious assault vehicles involved in securing a bridge in Nasiriyah when, on March 23, they came under heavy enemy fire while crossing the Chanawongse’s vehicle, which Marines call an “Amtrak,” became disabled. He safely evacuated his men from the vehicle and tried to get them to safety as he helped get more ammunition to other Marines. Wounded by shrapnel, he was rushed to a medical evacuation vehicle known as a “Med-evac,” which was itself hit by enemy fire, Blanchard said. Learning how Chanawongse’s selfless actions helped accomplish an international military mission has helped his mother and stepfather accept his passing. “He didn’t go there and just die,” Tan Patchem said. “He did something. He used the whole training from 3 ½ years (in the Marines), and he did it. He did it with his heart.” Chanawongse’s personal effects will arrive in the U.S. on Friday, but the Patchems have no idea when they will get them, Paul Patchem said. The items — which fellow Marines said include photos, uniforms, and games — were recovered in the Amtrak that Chanawongse rode from the shores of Camp Lejeune and onto a ship that took him to the Mideast. The family will also eventually receive a “final report” from the Marines on how their son died. Though Tan Patchem thought the trip to Camp Lejeune would be unbearably sad, healing outweighed the grief, she said. Close friends returning from Iraq who are still trying to cope with Chanawongse’s death agreed. Josh Martinez, 22, met Chanawongse, whom the Marines had nicknamed “Chuckles” or “Chuck,” while they were both training on Amtraks on the California shore. He and the irrepressible Chanawongse enjoyed “shopping for clothes, going out to eat, out to the clubs,” Martinez said. After learning of his friend’s death, Martinez dreamt that he talked to Chanawongse over his Amtrak radio. He started yelling because he thought someone was playing a prank, but Chanawongse told him to calm down. “And I said, ‘You’re dead.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, but I’m OK,’” Martinez recalled. “After that, I woke up crying — yelling in my sleep. My Marines were all just looking at me.” Martinez has lost two other close friends since the war started. He said meeting the Patchems, Chanawongse’s friend, Steve Cavan, and other families “is the one thing that helps me the most.” For Sergeant Jeremy Donaldson, 22, that reunion at Camp Lejeune was long overdue. He and his wife, Amber, had become close to Chanawongse and communicated with his family by phone and e-mail over the past three years, he said. In Iraq, Donaldson, a section leader in charge of three other amphibious vehicles, escaped the March 23 firefight, though his vehicle did not. Bereft of his own belongings, he greeted the Patchems. After that, the returning Marines lined up to pay their respects to the family, Amber Donaldson said. The depth of their feelings for Chanawongse, Tan Patchem said, made her feel “stronger … and proud.”
Corporal Chanawongse is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, 1 Memorial Avenue, Arlington, Virginia; Section 60, Site 7876.
