Mark Kilgore (Friend of Family)

Entered December 28, 2018 from ARLINGTON HEIGHTS

Deepest sympathies to the Gilmore family on the loss of Christopher.

(Jerry) Ross Flavel (Childhood friend - Berlin, Germany)

Entered December 28, 2018 from Bend, Oregon, USA

What a life, Chris. So sorry I missed so much of it. What a great fellow adventurer you'd have been! From what I've learned recently, your's was a life well lived and you, a man well loved. We should all be so fortunate or, more likely, so caring & giving. Just to look at pictures of you still brings a smile to my face. My sincere condolences to the many you've left behind.

Tom Phillips (close friend from William and Mary and U.S. Army)

Entered January 1, 2019 from Edmond, OK.

Chris and I were team mates on the lacrosse team at William and Mary and went through jump school training together in the army at Ft. Benning, GA in1973. He was a close friend.

Patrick and Lucy Hughes (Friend)

Entered January 4, 2019 from Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Our condolences to Christopher, George and Caroline and the rest of the Gilmore's. He will be missed by all.

Margarete (Frey) de Soleil (family friend)

Entered February 11, 2019 from Lincolnwood, IL

Our families were stationed together in Germany, and from there the Gilmore's became our lifelong friends. Our parents continued their friendships back to the states, and both sets of parents are buried at Arlingtion.
Chris and I re-connected over art, and our email conversations evolved to travel, books. sports and each of our children. Chris' sendings were witty, playful, full of life's observations, and always brightened my day.
He will be missed.

For Chris, here is the Henry Van Dyke poem that I read at my mother's memorial:

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone."

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.

And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

Gone from our sight, but welcomed by our parents and our sister Susan.

With love,
Margarete

I'll not forget snowballing the VoPos (East German Volks Politzei) with Chris & friends at the "wall", the Teltow Canal, in Berlin's more remote suburbs (1963-65). One has to understand that, due to our respective preferences in sport, an average American boy's throwing range was easily twice that of a comparable German kid. Get 4 or 5 of us capable of launching 4 snowballs each at max range and varying trajectories and ducking out of sight before the first impacts and you get a feel for the effect achieved. (Time on target / fire for effect - even then a budding Artilleryman!)

Chris and I met playing lacrosse at the College of William and Mary, our alma mater. We became good friends as we paired up on the same specialty defensive unit.

Our friendship continued after graduation as we both became army officers in the Air Defense Artillery. In fact, we went through Jump School (parachute training and qualification) at Ft. Benning, GA. in December 1973 which is where my story begins.

Chris had a tendency to push back against army rules and procedures. I tried to keep a lower profile especially in jump school where officers were identified by having an "A" on a piece of masking tape on our helmets proceeding our assigned number. This way, the NCOs training us, (the black hats) would know they were dealing with an officer if there was ever any discipline that needed to be doled out. It was one of the few places where an NCO had authority over an officer. We were constantly doing pushups or squats like everyone else. The first week of Jump School was known as Ground Week and one aspect of the training was to jump out of a 35 foot tower with a jump harness on and slide down a wire to a large dirt mound (like a zip line) where a team there would catch and unhook you. Officers were in charge of these teams. One day, when Chris was in charge of a mound team, another adjacent team screwed up and had to do pushups. While they were at it, the Black Hats ordered Chris" team to do pushups as well, even though they had nothing to do with the infraction. At this injustice Chris rolled his eyes at the NCOs. Big mistake. They huddled around and determined they had a lieutenant with an attitude problem that needed special attention. To go through one cycle of the 35 ft towers took about 10 minutes and when I went up to the doorway to jump, Chris was doing squats off to the side. When I went all the way through the cycle and back up to jump Chris was still doing squats. The next morning he could hardly walk down the stairs of our quarters. After that he decided to keep a lower profile.

One other quick story comes to mind. At the end of jump school everyone celebrated our graduation with beers in the graduation hall. There, a burly Marine captain in our class started arm wrestling with anyone who would dare challenge him. He quickly dispatched 2 opponents much to the frustration of the largely army group. Chris couldn't stand it and took him on. It's hard to describe the electricity and excitement of this event as Chris settled in across from him and the hundred or so spectators crowded around. It was an epic battle that lasted several minutes and went both ways until Chris finally slammed him down. The room exploded in cheers as Chris, the army guy, beat the Marine captain. Anyone who witnessed this duel was unlikely to forget it. I know I never will.