Members of the Rhode Island National Guard’s Military Funerals Honor Detachment carry the ashes of Sgt. Michael Weidemann, the victim of a roadside bombing in Iraq. Weidemann was near the end of his second tour of duty when he died.

The Providence Journal / John Freidah

Gertrude Miller, grandmother of the fallen soldier, receives an American flag at his burial at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Portsmouth.

THE Providence Journal John Freidah

Members of the Rogers High School Junior ROTC honor Michael Weidemann at the Newport high school yesterday. Weidemann had been an ROTC member before graduating in 2001.

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

PORTSMOUTH — The riderless horse led the procession from St. Mary’s Episcopal Church to the cemetery plot where Sgt. Michael R. Weidemann would be buried.

A drummer walked slowly behind the jet-black Friesian as it trotted down the leaf-strewn path, empty boots strapped backward into stirrups on either side of the restive animal’s body. Seven members of the Rhode Island National Guard’s Military Funeral Honors Detachment followed, with one member of the group holding the wooden box containing Weidemann’s ashes.

The 23-year-old Newport soldier was laid to rest yesterday beneath a copse of trees in this rural section of Portsmouth, far from the war zone where he died 11 days before in the blast from an improvised explosive device.

A bagpiper played “Amazing Grace” under the waning autumn sun, and the Rev. Pamela Mott spoke.

“We commit Michael’s body to the ground,” she said. “Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.”

The soldiers in the honors detachment folded the flag they held over Weidemann’s ashes and handed it to his maternal grandmother, Gertrude K.C. Miller. They gave another to Catharine E. Weidemann, his sister, one each to his three brothers, Richard L. Weidemann and Edward R. and Benjamin J. Berriault, and one more to the adoptive parents of two of his brothers, Robert and Julia Berriault — six flags in all.

Weidemann was born in Canada and came to Rhode Island at age 7 when his mother moved here. Susanna Weidemann, a single parent, raised him and his four siblings in her mother’s house in Middletown. But Susanna Weidemann died a victim of cancer in 1999 at 40, and Michael, her second eldest, was placed in a group home.

He started attending the Newport Area Career and Technical Center, part of Rogers High School, and got involved in the school’s ROTC program. It brought order to what had been a troubled life.

He rose to the rank of senior noncommissioned officer in the program. In 2001, the month after his graduation, he enlisted in the Army as an auto mechanic, his area of study at the technical school. He joined the 1st Battalion, 36th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, stationed in Glessen, Germany.

He served a tour in Iraq and reenlisted for another four years. He was nearing the end of his second tour when he died Oct. 31 while on patrol in an armored vehicle near Hit, a town west of Baghdad in Anbar province. He was the 11th Rhode Islander to die in Iraq since 2003.

His funeral service was held inside St. Mary’s, where Weidemann’s grandmother is a congregant. The church is small and surrounded by century-old granite tombstones. Flags from each branch of the military hang from beams in the sanctuary.

Pastor Mott delivered the homily to more than 100 mourners, including family members, friends, Governor Carcieri, Sen. Jack Reed and Senator-elect Sheldon Whitehouse. She talked of Weidemann’s sacrifice.

“He found life in service to his family,” she said. “He found life in service to his country. He found life, and he gave it.”

Despite political controversy surrounding the Iraq war, she said, “we must never ever forget those who are willing to go there.”

“We come here to remember the power of community and the power of family. Remember Michael.”

Weidemann’s ashes were taken outside, past motorcyclists from the Patriot Guard Riders, who lined the path to his grave site. Their flags snapped in the breeze amid the clip-clop of the Friesian’s hooves.

Current members of Rogers High School’s ROTC program laid a wreath beside Weidemann’s grave. Seven uniformed soldiers fired three rifle volleys. A trumpeter played taps.

The ceremony ended, and friends and family members walked back to the parish house for a reception. William Jarbeau, Catharine Weidemann’s fiancé, was the last to leave.

As he clutched the flag given to Catharine, he said he would have liked to have met her brother.

Jarbeau, a mechanic, said maybe he and Weidemann would have bonded over a shared love of cars. Jarbeau and Catharine are expecting a son in March. He said they’re planning on naming the baby Jarrod Michael.

“I prayed to Michael last night,” Jarbeau said, “I asked him if he’d be my baby’s guardian angel.”

After he walked away, a cemetery worker raked soil into the small, shallow hole that held Weidemann’s ashes. An old horse chestnut shaded the grave. Its fallen leaves rustled on the ground.