VIDEO: Former Chatham Resident Remembers Husband Killed in Iraq

Erika Sullivan Friedman has a lot of memories of her husband, Marine Lance Corp. Vincent Sullivan. The thing she remembers the most, though, is his smile.

"He was just that guy who was always smiling," Friedman said. "In every picture, every time you saw him. Even his gunnery sergeant said said he always had a smile on his face."

Friedman also remembers her husband, who died in Iraq on July 23, 2004, as an "incredibly passionate" man. "He was so dedicated to everything and everybody," she said. "And I think all these soldiers, Army, Marine, Coast Guard, all these guys, they're all like that. And that's why they do what they do."

Sullivan joined the U.S. Marines after the terrorist attacks on 9/11. "That's when his life changed, too, forever," Friedman said. "I was trying to talk him out of it, like everybody else, and he said, 'You know, I'm doing this for a reason.' And I said, you know, what? And he said, 'So Brian [Sullivan's brother] and your brother don't have to go.'"

Sullivan and Friedman met at when he was a junior and she was a senior. They dated, broke up, but stayed close friends. One night in 2003 while Sullivan was on his first tour in Iraq, she wrote him a letter.

"Now I read this letter, and I just think, 'Oh God, why were you with me?'" Friedman said, laughing at a younger version of herself. "It was this letter that was just, 'I love you, I cannot live without you. You need to come home and be with me.' ... And two days later, I get a letter from him, from Iraq, saying the exact same thing," she said.

Sullivan proposed to her at the gazebo on Southern Boulevard over Labor Day weekend in 2003. They were married that December. Sullivan was killed in July 2004 when his platoon was attacked at a Baghdad power plant.

"I was looking at June or July 2004 [for a wedding date]," Friedman said. "But Vince was like, 'No, we need to do this now. ... He left July 7. And I just keep thinking, if he'd listened to me, which I always told him he should, we would have never gotten married. I would have chosen a date after he was deployed. ... If we would have waited for a July-something wedding, it never would have happened. He was very intuitive, that man," Friedman said.

Seven years after Sullivan died, Friedman said she prefers to focus on days that meant something to her husband. She said she thinks about his birthday, Dec. 15, and their anniversary, Dec. 27. "I remember those moments that meant something to him," Friedman said.

Since her husband's death, Friedman moved to Morristown, changed her career track from performing arts to accounting and has remarried. She gave birth to a daughter two years ago. She still attends memorial ceremonies every Veterans Day at Picatinny and is on the board of a scholarship in Sullivan's name that primarily focuses on visual arts.

"I think that sometimes people will look at me and think, 'Oh, she moved on,'" Friedman said. "But Vince is still such a big part of my life. He basically made me who I am today. ... I don't want Vince to be forgotten, and not just Vince, but all of our fallen heroes."

In the days leading up to Sept. 11, Chatham Patch will look at the lingering impact of 9/11 on the community.

In case you missed it:
Monday— in Chatham Borough and Chatham Township.

Coming Up:
Wednesday—Profiles of the Chatham victims of 9/11, taken from the text of Mayor Nelson Vaughan's speech from the 9/11 Memorial Ceremony on Sept. 11, 2009.
Thursday—How police protocols have changed in Chatham since 9/11.
Sept. 9—The police department discusses how its training has changed since the terrorist attacks. Also, coverage of Chatham Township's memorial ceremony.
Sept. 10—A special You Said It with Chatham residents about what they remember from 9/11. Also, Saturday evening coverage of Chatham Borough's memorial ceremony.
Sept. 11—Video of Chatham Borough's memorial ceremony and county coverage of other memorial events.