War dead kept family tradition alive

For Marine Lance Cpl. Kyle Crowley there was never any question. His father served more than two decades in the Army. His grandfather was a Marine during World War II.

While still in high school, Crowley worked at a local recruiting office in San Ramon, Calif.

On weekends, the teenager volunteered to train with recruits. Shortly after graduation, he enlisted in the Marines.

“That was the path that he wanted,” Mark Crowley said after his 18-year-old son was killed in battle in April 2004, seven weeks after deploying to Iraq. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Of the more than 500 Californians who have died while serving in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, scores spoke of family tradition as a driving reason for joining the military.

For Air Force Master Sgt. Jude Mariano’s family, service was a way of life. A Mariano had served in every conflict since World War II -- more than three dozen members in all.

“Mom wanted us to go to college,” said Gerard Mariano, after his youngest brother died in February 2004 at 39, after a car accident in Qatar. “But we were pretty proud of our lineage.”

Marine Cpl. Randal Rosacker followed his father into service, even after Rod Rosacker, a Naval command master chief on a U.S. submarine, urged him to pursue college athletics first.

“I tried talking him out of it, but he was too anxious. He didn’t want to wait,” Rosacker said after his 21-year-old son was killed in combat in March 2003.

Marine Staff Sgt. Allan K. Walker seemed unlikely to follow the path of ancestors who fought for the U.S. dating back to the American Revolution.

An underachiever in school, a teenage Walker styled his hair in a green mohawk.

He stunned his parents when he left a job flipping burgers to enlist.

“I had my doubts about him and the Marines, knowing how my son rebelled against authority,” said his father, Ken, after Walker, 28, was killed in battle in April 2004 in Iraq. “When he came back from boot camp, I was so proud. They took a punk kid and turned out a young man with a sense of honor.”

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megan.garvey@latimes.com

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latimes.com/wardead

Read more stories about Californians who gave their lives in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Readers are invited to share memories and post remembrances. The Times’ California’s War Dead database allows you to search by name, high school, hometown and more. Added this week: searches by military unit and theater of operation.