Mike Goski stared into the steel casket at his twin brother’s body, dressed for eternity in a deep-blue Marine Corps jacket with red piping and brass buttons. It was like looking into a cruel mirror, Chris’s face, so like his own, distorted by a wound the mortician couldn’t conceal.

Alone together for the last time, Mike slipped a knife into his brother’s hand, a weapon for Valhalla, the mythical refuge for fallen warriors.

Chris was a born fighter from Red Oak, Texas, a Marine commando with six tours of duty. In combat, he could orchestrate from the chaos a lethal strike by jet fighters, helicopters, mortar and artillery, raining hot metal on enemies a few hundred yards away.

At the cemetery, as “Taps” played, comrades of the Goski twins stood at attention, Marines in white hats and Special Forces in green berets. Mike, an Army Special Forces patch on his own shoulder, asked that none cry.

“Chris had only one fear that I’m aware of, and it was not death,” Mike said as he stood beside the coffin that held his twin. “He feared providing anything less than absolutely perfect close air support for his brothers. He feared failing them when they needed him the most.”