‘Anything to help anyone, friend, foe, whatever’: Memorial Day offers father chance to remember son’s legacy
On this Memorial Day, we celebrate the life of Lieutenant Commander Erik Kristensen, a 1990 graduate of Gonzaga College High School in D.C. and a 1995 graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
According to Kristensen’s father, Retired Navy Rear Admiral Edward Kristensen, he was an English major and a French minor who wanted to join the SEAL community at that time, but was not selected.
Erik became a surface warfare officer and was assigned to come back to the Naval Academy to teach English while working on his master’s degree at St. John’s in Annapolis. He decided to try to enter the SEAL community once more, was selected and became a Navy Seal shortly thereafter.
Rear Admiral Kristensen says Erik was task unit commander for SEAL Team 10 when he was killed on June 28, 2005, during Operation Red Wings.
He volunteered to lead a mission to retrieve four seals who were on the ground and under heavy attack by Taliban fighters, according to Edward. The Chinook helicopter that he was in was shot down in eastern Afghanistan and all 16 people onboard were killed.
Navy Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell was the only one to make it out of the attack alive.
Luttrell wrote the bestselling book “Lone Survivor” which became a movie with the same title in 2013 — Australian actor Eric Bana played the role of LCDR Kristensen.
Remembering Erik Kristensen’s legacy
When Rear Admiral Kristensen retired, the family settled in Washington, D.C., where his wife Suzanne, a native Washingtonian, had lived.
The 1965 Naval Academy graduate says the most notable thing he did during his career was supervise the Navy’s portion of the TWA Flight 800 recovery operation in 1996.
The plane exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York in July of 1996.
Rear Admiral Kristensen describes his son as “truly a man for others.”
“He would do anything to help anyone, friend, foe, whatever,” Edward said. adding that his son had, “a sense of humor that was unbelievable.”
“He could bring people out of the doldrums and make them smile,” Edward continued.
LCDR Kristensen was a member of the crew team while studying at the United States Naval Academy, where he is currently buried. His grave site is in view of Hubbard Hall which is the home of the crew team.
Kristensen was honored ahead of Memorial Day in The Kristensen Klassic, a golf tournament in support of a scholarship program at Gonzaga College High School, which was held on Friday, May 17, 2024, at the Club at P.B. Dye in Ljamsville, Maryland.
On Memorial Day, he and others will be remembered through the Run to Honor Annapolis Memorial Day 1 Mile Walk and Run from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Monday at the USNA Cemetery, which is by LCDR Kristensen’s grave site.
Visitors without access to the base can walk onto the base through Gate 1.
E-Day, a day created by family members to honor the life of LCDR Eric Kristensen, will be held on Saturday, June 29 at White Marsh in Bowie, Maryland.