Lost graves, mosquitoes & history -- Cayo Costa island

I'M IN TROUBLE. 

Making use of their overwhelming numbers since my arrival on shore, the Mosquito Air Corps had launched ceaseless squadrons against the bulwark of my smelly, toxic, DNA-dissolving insect repellent. Now, two hours into my incursion, the needle noses are breaking through.

The heavily wooded and spider-infested trail I’m struggling to follow has vanished. I have less than 60 minutes to get back to the boat.

Yeah, I’m in trouble.

Welcome to Cayo Costa.

How did I end up here?

 

A SHORT HISTORY

I have lived in Charlotte County off-and-on for more than 25 years and have seen much of Charlotte Harbor in that time, save one lonely little island south of Boca Grande. It has served as the Gulf Coast-facing windshield for hurricanes to splatter against whenever they made a hard right turn toward the harbor.

Depending on when you want to start the clock, Cayo Costa has been populated, albeit sparsely, for hundreds of years. The Calusa — a resourceful and fierce people — lived on the island because the fishing was good and the trade opportunities were even better until the Spanish — a disease-carrying and heavily armed people — arrived in their big, flammable boats.

The Spaniards sniffled and sneezed and shot the Calusas off the island, but not before the home team took down Ponce de Leon. Cuban Ranchos took up the trade, sending stacks of salted fish to Havana. By the 1860s, the Americans arrived and started shooting at each other while mining phosphate and, eventually, making ice, which rendered the centuries-old salting techniques obsolete.

The Americans sent North Carolinians to the island (weird, but true) and took the fish for themselves. Those few Cubans and Spaniards who stuck around turned to other goods and services. Their most popular item was a bootleg beverage called aquardiente, which loosely translated into either “hot water” or “fire water” depending on the local Spanish vernacular, and thus they ran afoul of the law.

Before Cayo Costa turned into the Wild West, Boca Grande simply became a better place to live. Just like that, everyone left.

To this day, only a scant few live on the island and few of them live there year-round, for the island can only be reached by boat. The northern part of the island became a state park and it is there I traveled on a sunny, steamy Tuesday this past week.

Oddly enough, while I was slipping in the mud and the bugs were leaching my blood, I thought to myself, “I need to come here more often.”

 

THE HELEN M

Early Tuesday morning at Fishermen’s Village in Punta Gorda, Ricky, Brad and Brenda welcomed me and roughly two dozen other souls aboard the Helen M, a ship of the King Fisher Fleet. Three times a week, a King Fisher ship offers an entertaining, music-laden voyage to the barrier islands of Cabbage Key and Cayo Costa.

Half of Tuesday’s crowd was in search of Cabbage Key’s famous “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” which may or may not have inspired a certain Jimmy Buffet song. The rest were hoping to stroll along Cayo Costa’s long, lonely beaches and swim in the warm, inviting Gulf.

Then there was me, the Intrepid Seeker of Knowledge, who boldly planned to cover the state park’s six-plus miles of trails in one, brief afternoon. After Ricky deftly piloted the Helen M into the dock at the park’s bayside entrance, a tram to the Gulf side took care of the first mile or so of my adventure, lazily pulling us along shady trail through the island’s heart.

When the tram broke through the cover, Cayo Costa’s sun-splashed beach blinded us until the Gulf’s blue-green waters restored our vision. The beachcombers broke for their bliss while I turned north along the Gulf Beach Trail, past a dozen or so rustic rental cabins populated by a hardy group of campers unencumbered by the lack of electricity and high-speed internet.

An aside: It was in these cabins that a writer named Elia Chepaitis wrote a rather entertaining 2018 novel called “The Murders on Cayo Costa.” The Amazon blurb describes it as “a thriller, a romance, and an adventure story set in the Florida Keys, in the Everglades, and on a magnificent barrier island in the Calusa Blueway near Sanibel and Captiva. Eighteen campers settle into their primitive cabins and, within twenty-four hours, a killing spree begins.”

Past the cabins, my only companions were the occasional butterfly and various unseen-but-heard lizards and small mammals scurrying through the underbrush. Prickly pears and sea grapes, heavy with fruit, were plentiful. In the occasional clearing rose an Indian Mound to remind one of the island’s original guardians.

Gulf Beach Trail emptied out at the north end of the primary beach where a snorkeling foursome was surprised to see me emerge from the wilderness. One of the men asked where I came from.

“Kansas, originally,” I said.

“No,” the man said, pointing behind me. “Where did you come from?”

I told him about the trail. Turns out he had been coming to Cayo Costa off-and-on for years via boat and never realized the state park was there. He figured it was an off-limits preserve.

“The trails are pretty terrific,” I said. “You ought to give ‘em a try some time.”

“Nah,” he said, pulling his snorkel into position. “Nice to meet you.”

Back to my lonely journey.

 

THE PADILLA TRAIL

Tariva Padilla and his family were one of the island’s greatest success stories, until they weren’t, then were again. Whether his name was spelled Tariva, Taribio or Tervio, he went by “Captain Pappy” and originally hailed from the Canary Islands.

He earned his citizenship in Key West in 1862, according to historian Charles Dana Gibson and his book, “Boca Grande: A Series of Historical Essays.”

Padilla arrived at Cayo Costa sometime thereafter. He established a small fishing community and his small family became a large one that sang and danced and lived and loved whenever they weren’t fishing and salting and shipping.

At the time, the northern end of Cayo Costa was an American military installation that served as a quarantine station for immigrants and refugees. The Padillas were technically squatters, but the military had other priorities and it didn’t hurt that Captain Pappy could occasionally provide aquardiente to the sullen, homesick servicemen.

It was the aquardiente that — perhaps apocryphally — did Padilla in. In 1901 when a new officer discovered Padilla’s operation dabbled in more than fish, the community was cleared and Padilla was banished.

The clan didn’t stay away for long and Padilla would live out the rest of his days further south on the island, all the while continuing to sing and dance and share his “fire water” with all.

The Padilla Trail picks up about three-quarters of a mile north of Gulf Beach Trail’s end. The trail is a short, quarter-mile hike through dense cover that ends on a dune overlooking a secluded beach. Two trail bikes were parked at the dune’s crest, but their riders were nowhere in sight. A long-dead tree served as a sentinel just offshore from the shell-encrusted sand.

It was paradise found. A vision that will stay with me for years to come.

Of course, that’s also where my journey took a wrong turn.

 

A GRAVE SITUATION

The head of the Dolphin Trail began just around the corner from Padilla’s little slice of paradise, near the extreme northwest end of the island. Right away, I knew I was in trouble.

Tropical Storm Elsa’s close pass had wiped out the beach, so I had to move inland. Fallen palm fronds and pine branches piled high and whenever my foot found the ground, slick mud threatened to take me down. Crab spiders and other eight-legged species lost a lot of silk to the weird, flailing hominid that ran through them, slapping and cursing.

I was good and lost. Checking my watch, I had just one hour remaining before the Helen M would pull away from dock and leave me stranded until Thursday. Or, heck, maybe I’d never get out of here and my bones, picked clean by the unseen critters, would become just another island mystery.

Eventually, I picked up the trail near the old quarantine dock on the northeast side of the island, turned to the south and my education began in earnest. The 0.79-mile Quarantine Trail passes by Burrough’s Ranch, Dead Man’s Cove and Tariva’s Bayou, but the entire stretch is now known as Pelican Bay.

It is here in 1910 the island suffered its most significant loss of life. According to Gibson, a few dozen Cuban fishermen and skippers sought shelter just offshore from Tariva’s Bayou during an approaching hurricane. When the winds shifted and their position became exposed, they decided to abandon Cayo Costa and make a run for Bokeelia to the south. Their smacks (a type of boat) were fully exposed by their misjudgment, and the vessels broke up, drowning all but one boy.

When their bodies washed up in the Bayou, the locals renamed it “Dead Man’s Cove” and buried the bodies where they lay. The exact location has been lost to time and the shifting sands may have either washed the graves out to sea or backfilled their location and moved them inland. The quiet, dense flora of Quarantine Trail gives one the sense of walking over their graves.

In the silence, I turned back to nearby Scrub Trail and headed toward the heart of the island to view a less eerie resting place.

When a rare ray of sunlight broke through the canopy, I lifted my hand to shield my eyes and found it covered in mosquitoes. I slapped my hand and something large and unseen bolted away under cover of brush.

Yeah, time to scram.

 

BACK TO SHORE

From the Scrub Trail, I picked up Cemetery Trail and turned south. After a half-mile or so, I came across a small, proper collection of tombstones known as the Old Pioneer Cemetery. The most famous of the buried is a Captain Peter Nelson, a well-known pilot who helped navigate ships through the Boca Grande Pass into the harbor, among his other pursuits.

Soon, I was back on the tram path and at the dock just as the tram pulled up with a load of happy, sunburned and slightly buzzed beach-goers.

The Helen M, with Ricky at the wheel, pulled up while blasting Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”

I love Metallica. I flunked many a college course to the beat of Lars Ulrich’s drums.

On board, a woman slightly my elder who was also enjoying the music asked Ricky the name of the Spotify channel he was he was playing. Ricky said a kid had picked it out and it was called “classic rock.”

The Helen M was under way before I could ruminate too deeply on the fact Gen-Z considers the Metallica headbangers of my youth to be “old-timey” music for the gray-haired, baggy-eyed set.

Enjoying the breeze and resting in the sunlight of the Helen M’s open-air second deck, I spotted a pod of dolphins leaping through the water. They charged toward us head-on, like a cetacean remake of “The Magnificent Seven.” The dolphins shot under the boat, then popped up on both sides and escorted us home.

I have thought about Cayo Costa every day since.

As soon as I can, Captain Pappy’s ghost as my witness, I’m going back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suicide Simon's Second Act

Leopold "Suicide" Simon in his heyday. The one-time daredevil turned hotel owner used to set himself ablaze and jump from 150 feet into a small water tank until it became too dangerous. So he started blowing himself up in small boxes with three sticks of dynamite. (Photo courtesy Elizabeth Gibson Wagner)

UTTER THE WORDS “Suicide Simon” and Don Berini is quick to jump from behind the counter at The Bean Depot Café to take a visitor around his unique property.

To see what he sees requires a little imagination and a lot of bug spray, but his excited jumble of words quickly coalesce into an incantation. A spell is cast and one suddenly sees what he sees — a future in reviving the past.

Berini is the third generation of his family to take a go at this land, which once belonged to daredevil Leopold Simon, nicknamed “Suicide” for an act in which he would climb a 120-foot ladder, stand on a 10-inch platform, set himself ablaze, and dive into a flame-encircled water tank.

After breaking bones in his back and neck for the third time, Simon opted for what he believed to be a safer stunt — climbing into a crate with three sticks of dynamite and blowing himself up, thus becoming known as “The Human Firecracker” to overjoyed, and possibly relieved, carnival spectators around the country.

Berini’s family, along with a couple of partners, bought the land from Simon’s widow, Donna, in the 1990s. On the heavily forested grounds resided a rundown train depot and post office as well as the former El Jobean Hotel, along with several trailers Simon used for travel and building various contraptions.

The Berinis rejuvenated the depot into the café, complete with live music, while converting the post office portion into a museum dedicated to the history of the community, as well as Simon.

“The history here is incredible,” Berini said. “It actually caused a rift between my grandfather and father because my grandfather bought it as an investment and my dad fell in love with the history and wanted to preserve everything.

“That’s what I am hoping — trying — to do, now,” he added.

SIMON’S STUNTS

Berini’s first stop is a framed 1894 diploma that belonged to Simon’s father, Leo Simon Sr.

“This is his father’s pharmacy degree from Northwestern,” Berini said. “A lot of people think he’s just a maniac, but he came from an educated family.”

It’s this particular piece that pulls together the Simon puzzle, for there was much more to the daredevil than derring-do.

Suicide Simon caught in the act.

Berini, an engineer by trade before returning to Charlotte County upon his father’s death in 2019, theorized Simon survived his water dives due his flips and the wind friction the flames generated as he dove. Next, a thin film of kerosene on the tank water reduced the surface tension just enough to dampen the hit. Lastly, the tank itself was sloped at the bottom, allowing Simon to slide.

As for his dynamite act, Simon wore an aviator helmet with a vise that held ear pads in place. Inside the box with the three or four sticks of dynamite, it was all about placement.

Simon in 1949 told the Dallas Morning News, “I keep my head six inches from the source of the blast where there is a vacuum. A few feet from the source and I’d be blown to bits.”

There was more to Simon than his stunts, according to Elizabeth “Bitsy” Gibson Wagner, a second cousin who has served as the greater family historian.

“He worked on the first skyscraper built in San Antonio,” she said. “He was known for walking the high construction beams of some well-known, multi-storied buildings in his hometown of San Antonio.”

During his daredevil days, Simon traveled around the country, living in a trailer he converted from of a railroad boxcar. Wagner said through a process of trial and error, Simon invented a wind generator that provided electricity to the trailer and air brakes to aid in its transportation. One of his early wind turbines is displayed at the museum. In fact, Simon’s various inventions twice landed him in Popular Mechanics magazine.

Like many circus and carnival performers in the early-to-mid 20th Century, the Simons wintered in the Sarasota area. It was during one of those offseasons that Simon met Joel Bean, founder of El Jobean and owner of the El Jobean Hotel and Fishing Lodge. A friendship began and the Simons’ visits became more frequent. In 1942, Simon bought the hotel from a penniless Bean, who died soon after, and began catering specifically to his circle of circus and carnival performers.

Two of Simon’s nieces, Millicent and Nuala, told Wagner of what they saw whenever they came to Florida to visit their uncle.

“You could see aerialists on high trapeze bars practicing their acts behind the hotel, like the Flying Wallendas,” Wagner said. “And, occasionally, Leo blowing himself up out in an open field.”

For a brief time, the hotel prospered and the Simons expanded. Alas, the late Bean’s dream of a booming community never came to pass and as circuses and carnivals dwindled, so too did the hotel’s bottom line.

Eventually, the hotel closed and in 1972, Simon passed away at 66 of natural causes. Donna continued to live in the hotel, appointing herself the unofficial historian of El Jobean, gathering and preserving artifacts until she passed away in 1995. The Simons are buried together at Gulf Pines Memorial Park in Englewood.

Before he passed, Simon summed up his death-defying life while talking to a reporter from an earlier iteration of the newspaper that would become The Daily Sun:

“I’m not proud of this,” he said. “I think it’s pretty damn stupid.”

Later in the story, the reporter hit a little closer to the truth:

“In reality, he loved scaring and thrilling the crowds that flocked to see him perform. His feats to this day have not been equaled or surpassed by any other performer.”

SIMON’S SECOND ACT

As a child, Berini remembered Donna Simon as a bit of a firecracker, herself.

“I grew up walking the neighborhood with Donna Simon,” he said. “As an old woman, she would always tell me ‘most people say you need to stay flexible’ and she would take her forearms and stick her forearms flat against the ground.”

When Donna Simon sold the property to the Berini family, they also acquired all the artifacts, intellectual property and likenesses pertaining to Simon, including a screenplay based on his life written by Judi Ann Mason, one of the writers of the movie, “Sister Act 2.”

Berini’s father, Tim, and some other investors formed El Jobean Historical Properties. He left the hotel, trailers and property to the elements while rehabilitating the depot and post office into The Bean Depot Café and Museum. Tim Berini proved to be a colorful character, known to the locals as “The Mayor of El Jobean” and ran the café as a cash-only operation with hand-written payroll and no phones.

When his father passed away in 2019, the café had just finally paid for itself and the Berinis had set their sights on the rest of the land. Lost deep in the pepper trees and dense undergrowth, the hotel had largely collapsed while the trailers and truck rusted and compacted under the weight of the foliage.

Berini’s first move was to clear out the pepper trees, opening up the original field where the circus performers practiced. He is hopeful to make it into an event field.

He also plans to dismantle one of the trailers and repurpose it for the café’s tiki bar.

“Kind of like what Leo would have done,” Berini said. “Use what you have around and make something useful. He used everything.”

The hotel is a tougher nut to crack. In a twist, the oldest part of the hotel, consisting of its enclosed front porch and reception area, remains intact while storms have reduced the rest of the L-shaped building to rubble. The entire building is almost entirely obscured by the growth around it.

“Everyone thinks it’s just an old cracker house, but that little house over there? That’s a 24-room hotel,” Berini said.

On the hotel’s front door are the remnants of three different “No Trespass” signs. When the Berinis braced the door to keep it shut, intrepid explorers simply kicked in the porch enclosure to its side. At the opening, furniture and other items have been strewn across the ground.

“People have been dragging stuff out of it,” he said. “It’s really discouraging.”

Throughout the interior, holes in the floor reveal where the explorers took a wrong step and fell through.

Berini’s current three-year plan is to recreate the hotel’s original façade and front rooms. Not much can be done for the remainder of the building, so Berini is eager to turn the back end of the oldest section into a brewery or distillery.

Much has been taken from the property over the years, but at the same time, a number of videographers and bloggers have passed through, documenting the history. That conflict is something Berini constantly wrestles with.

“Pop kept everything covered up to keep people from destroying it all, but at the same time, they’re not going to last much longer,” he said. “Everyone’s going through and documenting, so it’s bittersweet.”

“At the same time, that’s the point of history,” he continued. “If you’re here now, I want people to enjoy it.”

If his plan comes to fruition, Berini envisions a lively attraction combining the past with the present. The café building and the hotel are on the National Registry of Historic Places and there are many more artifacts from Simon’s life stored away that Berini hopes to put on display in an expanded museum.

While recreations of Simon’s stunts won’t be happening, perhaps one day the dormant field where death was once defied will finally see new life.

 

Don Berini, shown here with Dulcie Hubert, left, and his mother Ruth Anderson, runs The Bean Depot and Museum in El Jobean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Faces on the Plaques: The fallen heroes of CHS

Brian Buesing was killed in action on March 23, 2003 and laid to rest at Cedar Key on April 5, 2003. He and Michael Woodliff were wrestlers at Charlotte High who lost their lives in the early days of the Iraq War. To this day, the school's wrestling team honors their sacrifice with awards named for them.

THE CHARLOTTE TARPON wrestling team’s annual awards banquet has always been a raucous affair, but the 2021 edition had a particularly rowdy edge to it.

These Tarpons were state champions. Everyone in the room played a role in getting them to the mountaintop.

Tarpons coach Evan Robinson handed out the awards and accolades. Pictures were taken. Laughter was the evening’s soundtrack.

Throughout the celebration, in the heart of the room, two faces stared out from a pair of plaques known to all Charlotte wrestlers and their families. Nearby, a man stared back.

Before the night was over, he would have his say.

“Always, always, when you leave your parents, give them a hug,” the man said when his moment arrived. “Tell them you love them all the time because you just don’t know what’s going to happen.”

The Charlotte High community knows well the story behind the faces on those plaques.

For everyone else, this is the story of Brian Buesing and Michael Woodliff.

 

BRIAN BUESING

In the late summer of 1996, a wiry, 98-pound kid moved through the hallway of the old Charlotte High School until he was ambushed from behind.

Two older kids swept him up and carried him to an office where two men were sitting.

“Hey coach,” one of the kids said. “We found our 98-pounder.”

Bill Hoke and Ron Schuyler appraised the boy dropped before them. Hoke turned to Schuyler.

“There he is,” Hoke said. “There he is.”

Bill Buesing’s son was athletic but not into sports. He was a big fan of the WWE and no one could pull him away from the occasional superhero movie.

“I think it was that first Tuesday of school,” Bill said this week. “Brian had no idea what they were talking about but then he came home and said, ‘I’m on the wrestling team.’”

Bill had been an athlete throughout his school years but had given up on Brian ever joining in.

“Then two days later, he comes home and says, ‘I’m on the varsity wrestling team,’” he said. “Ho, ho, slow down, how’d you get to the varsity already? I know how hard that is. He says, ‘Well, they needed me to be on varsity so that’s what I’m doing.’”

Bill went to Charlotte High to figure out what was going on. He met Hoke and Schuyler and in short order liked everything he was hearing.

It was simple math, really. Hoke knew the team was good and potentially great, but there was a hole in the team at 103, the lightest weight. Not just any little kid would do. They needed someone with stamina, courage and a work ethic bordering on militaristic. The son and grandson of a Marine certainly fit that description.

With Brian’s help, the Tarpons would go on to win a state title that year. It would be Brian’s only year at Charlotte High, but it was a year he would talk about for the rest of his life.

It would be a short life.

Six years later, Brian Buesing was dead.

 

MICHAEL WOODLIFF

It was a love story.

She was a freshman, he was a senior. She rode at the front of the bus while he rode in the back. Their eyes met.

She tried to join him in the back, but the upperclassmen blocked her. He came to her defense.

“You can sit with me,” he said.

Michael Woodliff had no reason to be on the bus. He had a car. He had seen her, though, and bluffed his way onto the bus just to meet her.

He was in love. So was Crystal Steward.

In the days that followed, Crystal learned much about her new beau. His heart was uncommonly big, but came with a mile-wide streak of mischief.

His nickname was “Roof Boy” for a stunt in which he jumped to the roof of a moving car and steered it while lying on his belly. Part daredevil, part hold my beer, it brought cheers from all who saw it, save for two law enforcement officers.

He used his charm to talk his way out of tickets for improper use of a vehicle and driving without a seat belt.

The year before Michael met Crystal, he had met Hoke. Like Brian two years prior, Hoke plucked Michael out of the halls.

“He was strong and had the determination to be the best he could be,“ Hoke told The Sun in 2009. “Most of all, the team concept was what Mike was all about. He enjoyed belonging to a team, a family. I think that had a lot to do with how close he was to his family.”

The Tarpons would fall short of a state title in 2000, but Michael did his share of heavy lifting on a team that would win district and regional titles.

The love affair between Michael and Crystal continued after his 2000 graduation.

On Nov. 29, 2002, Michael proposed to Crystal in front of a German palace.

The plan was to get married in the summer of 2004. Crystal ordered a dress. The veil was on the way when the news arrived.

Michael Woodliff was dead.

 

AMBUSH ALLEY

The faces staring back from the plaques are of two servicemen who died in the earliest days of the Iraq War.

Brian was the 30th to die. Michael the 279th. More than 4,500 coalition members would follow.

Brian was already in ROTC by the time he joined the Tarpon wrestling team. His entry into the Marines was so little in doubt that Bill had a pen ready when a recruitment officer showed up at his home seeking a his signature for Brian’s enlistment.

Bill served with the 2nd Marine Division as a radio operator during the Vietnam War. Bill Sr. was a mortar man in the 1st Marine Division during the Korean War, where he was awarded the Silver Star for saving the lives of eight in his company.

Brian passed through Parris Island and followed in his grandfather’s footsteps as a mortar man in the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade.

Originally thinking he would serve his four years then get on with his life, Brian returned home for Christmas in 2002 and told his father he was thinking of re-enlisting.

“He said, ‘I’m going to re-up’ because they made him some pretty good offers,” Bill said. “I said that’s good man, stay. What else is there to do? You’re enjoying it and you’re getting promoted, so just stay.”

Shortly thereafter, he was deployed overseas as part of the buildup to the Iraq War.

Brian’s final day — March 23, 2003 — began when a supply officer leading the Army 507th Maintenance Company convoy took a wrong turn and was pinned down by the enemy in the Euphrates River city of An Nasiriyah. Of the 18 vehicles, 15 were destroyed. Of the 33 soldiers, 11 were killed and six — including PFC Jessica Lynch — were captured.

In charged the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines in companies Alpha, Bravo and Charlie with the objective of capturing the two bridges spanning the Euphrates and a third over Saddam Canal. Alpha took the first bridge, but Bravo became bogged down in thick mud and higher-than-expected water levels. Alpha moved in to aid Bravo, blocking the path forward for Charlie – Brian’s company.

Charlie detoured down a road known as Ambush Alley, taking heavy fire for four kilometers before reaching the bridge over Saddam Canal.

Brian, his 98-pound frame retrofitted with muscle bringing him to 165 pounds, did what he did best, cracking jokes and keeping morale high despite the fact everyone was seeing their first combat.

“From what we were told, he was running back and forth, joking and laughing and at one point he said, ‘Man, these guys can’t shoot us. We keep running right in front of them,’” Bill said. “Then it wasn’t a half-hour later they took that mortar.”

Brian had just delivered ammunition to a mortar nest when an enemy mortar landed between the four men.

He died instantly.

By the time the engagement was over, 11 of Charlie company’s 18 men were killed and four were injured.

In the days following the battle, the Buesings received conflicting accounts of what happened to their son. The story of Jessica Lynch was celebrated, then questioned. A friendly fire incident involving two A-10s later in the battle put a lid on all information.

Eventually, a lieutenant who was present at the battle arrived with notebooks and a full account of the day. The Buesings also received a letter from another lieutenant — a James “Ben” Reid — who wrote of Brian:

“Under relentless and withering enemy fire, Brian was laughing as he got his mortar system into action and quickly dropped mortar rounds on several key enemy positions. I want you to know that Brian died facing the enemy. I hope your heart swells with pride when you think of Brian. Mine does, for Brian did so much for so many and asked for nothing in return. He died a hero fighting for his brother Marines and that is something most men in this world do not have the courage to do.”

 

WHEN LUCK RAN OUT

One month after Brian’s death, Michael deployed to Iraq with the U.S. Army’s 1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, 1st Armor Division.

Not long after his arrival, a man ran at Michael, ripping open his shirt to expose a bomb, but when the man pressed the plunger, the detonator malfunctioned. In February 2004, he narrowly escaped a building wired with explosives and “Roof Boy” thus became known as “Lucky.”

On March 2, 2004, his luck ran out when an improvised explosive device ripped through his convoy in Baghdad.

Michael had tricked his mother, Janine, into signing the waiver that got him into the Army, telling her it was a form for an athletic physical. Like Brian, he was the third generation of his family to serve. His father, Lee, was a sergeant during Operation Desert Storm. His grandfather served in the Navy during World War II.

The Woodliff family turned inward after the loss of their son and moved north upon Lee’s retirement where they remain intensely private to this day. The only outlet Janine permitted herself was the occasional correspondence with those who left messages for her son on his page at the Fallen Heroes Memorial web site.

On May 1, 2011, Navy Seal Team Six killed Osama bin Laden. The following day, Hoke — still a teacher at Charlotte High after stepping down as wrestling coach in 2004 — began each of his classes with a discussion.

“The first thing I thought of was the Woodliffs and the Buesings. I rejoiced in my heart for those families,” Hoke told The Sun that day. “I remember Bill Buesing telling me, ‘I just hope they don’t stop and forget about getting (bin Laden). Don’t let my son die in vain.’

“I hope they are at least at some peace, knowing they caught the culprit,” Hoke added. “It won’t bring their boys back but at least it’s a mission accomplished. Bin Laden had a lot of blood on his hands, but at least he’s not breathing anymore.”

Bin Laden’s death came exactly two months after the seventh anniversary of Michael’s passing. On that day, a message had been left on his Fallen Heroes page:

“After 7 years, it’s still a harsh reality that I can’t reach out and hold you.

Since the time you’ve gone to live with the Lord, it seems like my life has spun out of control. I yearn to hear you laugh and to see your smile. I miss the love your family and I shared for you and the acceptance from your Mom and Dad to become part of it all-it all felt so right.

“Every now and then a glimmer of hope flashes through my mind in consideration of some wacky conspiracy theory that you went on another secret mission and were never taken away from us. I know this can’t be true though. Thankfully, in my dreams it seems like you come to visit and if for only a moment, everything is ok. You’ve touched so many people’s lives and impacted them in many, many positive ways. You were such an influential person, I’m sure you had no idea just how special you were. You were a rock, a confidant, an unwavering friend, a caretaker, mentor, lover and just plain-out good lookin’. :)

“I still look at our pictures and videos, especially from the last visit to Germany, meeting your friends and from the one time you snuck me into your barracks late at night. It was so much fun hanging out with the guys and getting a taste of the brotherhood that you’d formed with so many there. It’s absolutely amazing how many lives you touched and how many of your friends have come on here to leave the wonderful sentiments.

“In my heart, we are together...and always will be my love.”

Crystal

 

THE PLAQUES

The last time the Tarpons won a state wrestling title, a future war hero was in their midst. He can still be seen, staring out from a plaque that hangs alongside a plaque of another war hero gone too soon.

Shortly following Brian’s death, the family began receiving money from well-meaning strangers. They didn’t know what to do with it, so they decided to establish a scholarship in his name at Charlotte High.

For its part, the school decided it would honor two deserving wrestlers each year with the Brian Rory Buesing and Michael Woodliff Awards.

“Brian Buesing is the Outstanding Wrestler and Michael Woodliff is the Coaches’ Award,” Robinson said. “This year, we actually gave Brian’s award to the whole team. It was really cool. We couldn’t have won a state title without any of them.”

Andrew Austin, who won his second state title, was awarded the Woodliff.

“I had never actually met the two boys, but then I got to meet both of their families,” Robinson said. “You talk about a tough situation. … I got to know the families very well over the years and now I think I know both of the boys just through the stories over the years.

“That’s 17 years of giving out these awards and the Buesings have been here just about every year except last year because of the virus,” Robinson added.

Attending the annual banquet has been cathartic for Bill. The fact that there are now kids graduating who were born after his son’s death is not lost on him.

“That time went by so fast and now I realize it when talking to the guys, but they’re so respectful,” he said. “They see the pictures up there on the wall all the time, him and Mike, so they know what happened. And the coaches drill it into them, too, that these guys were part of our team.”

The scholarship fund continues to receive money in trickles, but nothing like the flood of the early days, when celebrities like George Steinbrenner and Oprah Winfrey donated. The Marines used to pitch in $500 annually before a budget cut ended their participation.

Bill’s mother — Brian’s grandmother — handled the account until recently and he is hoping to transition it into the care of Charlotte High. Though his son attended the school for just his freshman year, Bill said it was the highlight of his son’s life and it was one of the last things they talked about before his death.

The banquet following Brian’s championship year is a memory Bill holds dear.

“The kids all wore suits and ties back in the day and you should have seen him,” he said. “Brian was 90-something pounds and they put all those medals and plaques on him and they were so heavy the guy next to him had to hold him up.”

With a new generation of wrestlers passing through Charlotte High, Bill joked that he can now start recycling his stories.

“They’re so attentive that sometimes it scares me when they’re starting back at me. They’re just taking it all in,” he said. “It’s amazing how they do it. But we have no problem going back every year because that was Brian’s favorite place.

“And those plaques, they’ll always be there.”