StoryCorps’ Military Voices Initiative shares the stories of service members and their families.

Cynthia Alvarez’s husband, Marine Corporal Daniel MacMurry, died in September of 2023.She came to StoryCorps to remember their life  together…including the early days, when she wasn’t sure if they’d be a good match… 

Transcript TRT: [2:38]

 Cynthia Alvarez: At first, I was shocked that I was dating a man who was Marine Corps,. Because I’m a peace activist. But our first date,. I learned so much about him on that day.

Dan enlisted in the Marines immediately after he graduated from high school. It was 1981 in North Carolina. 

He was hardcore sometimes, and I think that was the military training. I remember him yelling, and I said, well, we’re not having any of that here, in our house, we speak with gentle words. Eventually, he started to adapt. And that was the Dan I loved, the kind man, the man who would drive for hours just to get me a gluten-free meal.

And we loved good food. If anybody knows Dan, Dan loved his pizza. He loved his pretzels. He was like a big kid. I didn’t always agree with him, clearly. But we agreed on loving each other. 

Later on, he got sick. When he went to the doctors, they said he had like a blood cancer.  

And then one night we were watching a documentary about Camp Lejeune, how water contamination had poisoned many of the military personnel there. Camp Lejeune is where he went to basic training. We looked at each other and we knew that something was connected to his illness because if you would come to our kitchen table it was lined up with just pill after pill after pill. And sometimes it was grueling for him. 

But some of the men in his platoon, they started going to different cemeteries where Marine Corps veterans were buried, and paying homage to them. And the last visit he did before he died, he went to Camp Lejeune. It’s almost as if he knew, this is the way it started. Maybe it’s his way of saying goodbye. He died still loving the Marines. Ugh, Marine Corps gave me a wonderful man. But they also took my man. 

He wanted to be buried on November the 10th, the Marine Corps birthday. And I will honor him always on that day. The last time I went to visit, I took pretzels and I took an ice tea and I sat there with him. 

He was just 60 years old. He was a gentleman and a gentle man to me. And I feel that his spirit will be with me for a very, very long time, probably to my dying day.