Lisle native prepares for husband's burial at Arlington

A Lisle native will be begin a journey Monday that will end with the Wednesday burial of her husband, Maj. Jeffrey C. Bland, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

The 37-year-old Marine died Sept. 19 in a training accident at the Marine Corps training facility at Camp Pendleton in California.

His wife, 33-year-old Heather Cook Bland, said Saturday from their California home that he should be remembered as a man who focused his life around family and friends and knew what it meant to serve others and his country.

“He basically would do anything for his family and his friends, and that was always the main focus of his life,” she said. “He lived his life with such full integrity, and also, on the flip side, such a sense of humor.”

Joining Heather and the couple's 8-month-old daughter, Aliana, at the funeral will be about 50 family members and 50 friends who knew Jeff from Theta Xi fraternity at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign or the Marines, said Heather's mother, Jeanne McLennan of Lisle.

“It means the world to me because they're all family to me, too,” Heather said about her husband's fraternity brothers and fellow Marines. “It feels like I've got family from all walks of life there to support us and to help remember Jeff.”

During his time in the Marines, Bland was deployed three times — twice to Iraq and once to Japan. He had a bachelor's degree in aviation administration and was trained as a pilot at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida.

For the two years before his death, Bland had been training rookie pilots at Camp Pendleton, his wife said.

“Ever since he was a student pilot, he knew that he wanted to come back and teach students coming in,” she said. “That was certainly one of his clearest goals in the Marine Corps.”

While the trip to bury her husband certainly is a sad one, Heather said she appreciates the honor that comes with his being laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. The honor of Bland's final resting point adds to a flagpole recently dedicated to his memory outside his fraternity house in Champaign, McLennan said.

“I think it is just the highest honor and respect that you can pay to somebody who has served to be buried at Arlington,” Heather said. “He had this calling to be in the Marines and to serve, and he knew the sacrifices that came with it. I believe that he's certainly a hero in all of our minds and deserves to be laid to rest with utmost honors.”