Staff Sgt. Donald May Jr.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20030331_2062.html Marine Family Loses Son in Iraq War
Marine Killed in Iraq Had Followed Both Parents Into the Corps, Leaves Pregnant Wife
The Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va. March 31 —
Staff Sgt. Donald May Jr. followed both parents into the Marine Corps and, just like his dad, became a tank commander. He disappeared in Iraq nearly a week ago and his mother learned Monday he had been killed.
"When they came Friday night and told me he was missing, I knew then, I knew then he was gone," Brenda Reese May said from her Richmond home.
She added: "I don't think there are any words to describe the loss of a child. No matter how old they are, no parent should ever have to bury their only child."
May, 31, and two other Marines died when their tank plunged off a bridge into the Euphrates River. The Pentagon identified the other victims as Lance Cpl. Patrick T. O'Day, 20, of Santa Rosa, Calif., and Pfc. Francisco A. Martinez Flores, 21, of Los Angeles.
On Monday, the U.S. Central Command said a total of four Marines died in the incident. The fourth Marine was not immediately identified.
May and his crew were in the 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division, based at the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif.
O'Day had married his high school sweetheart in October, shortly before heading overseas, and Shauna O'Day is expecting the couple's first child in September, said his father, Tim O'Day.
"They were a young couple with a lot of dreams and hopes," Tim O'Day said. "All those have been taken away."
Martinez Flores was to have become a U.S. citizen in two weeks.
"It is an immense pain in the family," said Martha Martinez Flores in Duarte, Calif. "I just want them to stop it for all of the suffering mothers."
Brenda Reese May, who spent two years in the Marines as a secretary, said she met her husband, Donald C. May Sr., when both were stationed at Quantico Marine Corps Base in northern Virginia.
The elder May served two tours in Vietnam, earning two purple hearts, a bronze star and a Navy cross. He died in a fishing accident in 1991.
Brenda Reese May said her son was interested in the military from an early age, joining the U.S. Naval Sea Cadets from age 12 to 18. He also was a police Explorer.
He joined the Marine Corps the year he graduated from high school and spent four years in the military police, serving in the Middle East for the last few months of the first Gulf War in 1991. He left for two years, serving in the Reserves, then "got back in as a tank commander, just like his dad," his mother said.
"He was a clean-cut American boy," his mother said. "When he decided to go into the military, I was proud. Always scared, but proud. I know the drill, but it's still hard."
She added: "He was my only son and, as proud as I am to be a Marine, to be married to a Marine, and for my son to become a Marine, he was still my only son, he was all I had."
May's wife, Deborah, is 7 1/2 months pregnant with a boy, due May 16. She went into premature labor Friday after learning that her husband was missing, but doctors were able to halt the delivery.
"She's totally devastated," Brenda Reese May said. She said her son has a stepdaughter, Mariah, who will be 7 on Wednesday, and a son Jack, who will be 2 on April 18.
Associated Press writer Steve Szkotak contributed to this story.
