The wrestlers

Image courtesy: U.S. Army

During the winter of 1992-93, two talented young athletes could often be seen walking through the parking lot of New Hampshire's Plymouth Regional High School. The Bobcats wrestlers, usually bundled up in the bone-chilling cold after intense practices, shared a common goal of victory. Almost 15 years later, they were still teammates, albeit in support of a much more important cause. From Plymouth, New Hampshire, to Baghdad, Iraq, and Kunduz province, Afghanistan, Master Sgt. Jared Van Aalst (pictured left) and Capt. Douglas DiCenzo (pictured below) painted a vivid American portrait of resolve, gallantry, and sacrifice.

With a population of just under 6,000, "there aren't too many people here who haven't heard of Doug DiCenzo," New Hampshire Public Radio's Shannon Mullen reported from Plymouth in May 2006. While not a particularly imposing figure at about 5'7", DiCenzo also stood out on a championship football team. Mullen's article said the accomplished student was also elected president of his senior class in 1995 and voted 'mostly likely to succeed.'

"After high school, Doug attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, fulfilling a long time interest in the Army and service for his country," a profile by the The Captain Douglas DiCenzo Camp Fund said. He graduated in 1999, got married, moved to Alaska and later deployed to Germany. In mid-2005, DiCenzo learned a deployment to Iraq was on the horizon. Other than missing his wife and son, the company commander couldn't wait to get to work, and later showed the same enthusiasm when he called home from the front.

"He'd say we're doing so much good over here, he goes, you should see it, what's been built, and he felt they were making a difference with the kids, that the kids are the future of Iraq," mother Cathy Crane told NHPR.

"And he said most of Iraq is not what you see in the news. He says that's Baghdad, the slums of Baghdad. Most people are supportive, they like the troops," stepfather Mark Burzynski said.

Capt. DiCenzo was killed in Baghdad on May 25, 2006, by an improvised explosive device planted by terrorists. The 30-year-old soldier was commanding C Company in the 1st Armored Division, 2nd Brigade based in Baumholder, Germany, at the time of his death. As the fallen soldier's legacy grows around Plymouth, his son is now old enough to understand tapes his father recorded in case he didn't return from overseas.

Master Sgt. Jared Van Aalst was deploying to Afghanistan when his former wrestling teammate was tragically killed in Iraq, which he had fought in three times by that point. After being recognized with a Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts, and many more military honors, Sgt. Van Aalst was chosen as a Special Operations team member in 2008. Like DiCenzo, The Union-Leader reports that Van Aalst did not become an American soldier by accident. Years earlier on the wrestling mat, he showed a refusal to quit that he would later bring to the battlefield.

"Basically, he spent three years with the J.V. team. Not too many guys stay with it for that long," said [former wrestling coach] Cam Sinclair. "By the time he was a senior, he had developed physically and was one of the top wrestlers (160-pound class) in the state."

As Kevin Gray and Shawne Wickham's article notes, Van Aalst was captain of the wrestling team when DiCenzo, who would captain the team two years later, was a sophomore. Van Aalst joined the military in 1995 and attended Ranger School and Army Sniper School at Georgia's Fort Benning. In 2003, as the war in Iraq began and the war in Afghanistan was just two years old, Van Aalst helped complete critical missions on both battlefields.

"He's doing about as high-risk a job as you can do in that part of the world. He's on the front line," Sinclair said. "Looking back, it doesn't surprise me because I do remember him always talking about going in the military when he got out of high school."

According to the Pentagon, Van Aalst died of wounds suffered while his unit was conducting combat operations on August 4 in Afghanistan's Kunduz province. The 34-year-old soldier, who has been posthumously decorated with another Bronze Star and Purple Heart, was assigned to U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. More than four years after burying Capt. DiCenzo, Plymouth and nearby Laconia are again mourning the loss of a local hero.

"My thoughts and prayers, and those of my wife Susan, are with the family of Sergeant Jared Van Aalst," Gov. John Lynch said in a written statement. "Sergeant Van Aalst served this nation with courage, dignity and honor. He sacrificed for all of us. On behalf of the citizens of New Hampshire, our deepest sympathies go out to his family."

Gov. Lynch knows the pain this area of his state has felt. On May 26, 2008, he was on hand as hundreds turned out to dedicate a new bridge connecting Plymouth and Holderness to DiCenzo.

"Doug was a true leader and it's here in Plymouth that those seeds were planted. Today we are naming this bridge for a hero ... our hero," he said during the dedication.

As Plymouth and Laconia honor another hero, the wrestling mat at Plymouth Regional High School is empty. Yet this year's team will undoubtedly be told about two former captains who once stalked opponents in the same gym, and hear more about the tenacious grit Capt. Douglas DiCenzo and Master Sgt. Jared Van Aalst always displayed. Unlike the entertainment of the sport's professional level, the style of wrestling mastered by these warriors is very real.

Image courtesy: The Captain Douglas DiCenzo Camp Fund