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 MCLEANSVILLE — So real.

That was the gut reaction about David Emanuel Hickman on Sunday night.

But that was only the beginning. There were too many things that needed to be said and a few that had been left unsaid.

So funny.

So protective.

So strong.

So long.

Hickman was a 23-year-old Army paratrooper serving in Iraq who, only a week ago, talked to his parents about coming home in December. And his future.

That future was cut short last Monday when Hickman became yet another U.S. soldier to die from an improvised explosive device.

On Sunday, under a gray sky, family and friends filled the Northeast Guilford High School stadium bleachers to remember him.

“I was hoping they made a mistake,” said 24-year-old waitress Michelle Burch, a former classmate. “It hasn’t set in. I’m waiting for him to walk through the gate.

“He won’t be forgotten.”

The stadium was a fitting place. He played outside linebacker on this very field and was captain of the team. Had Zeus as a handle.

And if you saw him you knew why. Every square inch of him was muscle. Like a cinder block with a head attached.

“Of all the people that served, we just thought there was no way he wouldn’t come back,” said Olivia Pegram, 23, one of Hickman’s closest friends.

She called him Superman. But he was just as much like Clark Kent.

“He was the most genuine and loyal person you’d ever meet,” Pegram said. “He had the most infectious laugh that I’d give the world to hear again.”

Hickman got in a fight once. He ended up becoming friends with the guy.

“That was his personality,” Pegram continued. “He says one thing funny and you want to hang around with him.”

Stories about Hickman on Sunday were passed around as often as tissues. There was Hickman the comic. The protector. The party animal.

“Everyone has a David story,” explained former classmate Ashleigh Harrison, 23, a tissue tucked in her pocket. “He was our big brother. His priority — besides protecting our freedom — was his family and friends.”

It could have been a class reunion if not for the occasion. Courtney Brown, 23, said, “We don’t want to meet like this.”

When high school ends, normally you part ways. People promise to call and write. But they don’t. Years pass and friends become strangers.

Hickman made sure that didn’t happen.

It wasn’t unusual for him to come back from Fort Bragg, where he was stationed, and pick up with his old classmates again. Just like old times.

Lindzay Ellis, 23, looked forward to his visits.

“There are just some people you care about,” she said, “you want to stay in touch with.”

It was Hickman’s classmates who organized Sunday’s gathering so quickly, got the T-shirts and signs made and spread the word.

It was those friends who had tears in their eyes and had trouble talking about Hickman — that is, when they weren’t laughing about something he did.

It was Pegram who voiced about Hickman’s death what many felt.

“So young.”

Contact Mike Kernels at 373-7120 or mike.kernels@news-record.com