Marine Lance Cpl. Jacob Toves, 27, Grover Beach; among 3 killed in Afghanistan

For so long it was just the two of them in the two-bedroom town house in Grover Beach, near San Luis Obispo. Father and son watching action movies together, sharing homemade hamburgers with plenty of finadenefinadene sauce, a Guamanian staple.

Joe Toves had grown accustomed to living quietly with his only child in the more than four years since his divorce.

But, in 2006, his son, Jacob, then 25, decided to enlist in the Marine Corps. Jacob Toves was a lance corporal assigned to the 3rd Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division in Twentynine Palms, Calif., 300 miles away in the desert.

“He wanted to be his own man, and he thought being a Marine would do that for him,” Joe Toves, 61, said. The decision conflicted with his faith as a Jehovah’s Witness, but he eventually accepted his son’s decision. “Every day I prayed that Jehovah would watch over him,” he said.

In April, Jacob Toves was deployed to Afghanistan, serving with Task Force 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment. A Marine official said the battalion was sent to train Afghan security forces but, once there, saw its mission expanded into assisting combat forces.

While overseas, Toves phoned and e-mailed family members. He made plans for his return, including buying a used convertible and visiting Guam, his father’s birthplace, for the first time.

“Everything’s been going good so far,” he wrote May 28 to Deanna Surbridge, his step-grandmother. “It’s been a slow start as far as any operations outside of the camp, but our records are showing a return from [deployment] date around April 4 2009. so this may turn into a year deployment instead of 7 months.”

Less than three months later, on Aug. 14, Toves and two other Marines were killed in combat in Helmand province, southwest of Kabul. Toves was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart. He was 27.

Friends who heard the news posted messages on Toves’ MySpace page. “You will be remembered,” wrote his childhood best friend, Lance Padilla, also 27.

The two met as 5-year-olds while attending their local Kingdom Hall with their parents and began a friendship that continued through high school. On weekends, they surfed and built giant sandcastles no wave could touch. As they got older, they rode skateboards on the streets and snowboards on the slopes. “Anything with a board,” Toves would say of his hobbies.

“He would be skateboarding down the road with a big clown wig,” said Padilla. “He didn’t really care what anybody else thought about what he was wearing or doing.”

Padilla often joined Toves and his parents for family camping trips in their motor home. A hip-hop fan, Toves wrote poetry and performed it for his friend over beats that he produced on his computer. Toves cracked jokes and laughed often, Padilla said.

Toward the end of their senior year at Arroyo Grande High School, the two grew apart when Toves began showing signs of a mental disorder. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to Padilla and a family member who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject. It was unclear if Toves disclosed his illness to military recruiters.

In August, when the white military jet with Toves’ body landed in San Jose, Padilla was there to be a pallbearer. The family did not want a military ceremony, so he and four of Toves’ cousins and uncles simply carried the casket off the plane and into a hearse.

That day, Padilla was grateful that he had happened to run into Toves the night before he left for Afghanistan. Toves ended up coming over to his house, where they remembered the past and talked about the future. “After getting sick and losing a lot of his best friends, he wanted to belong, and he was really happy,” Padilla said. “He was excited to go and do this mission and accomplish something. . . . To see him the night before and know that he was leaving, I got to actually say goodbye.”

Goodbye, however, hasn’t come easily for Joe Toves. The clerk who has worked for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. for 22 years did not cry when the four men in uniform came to his door and told him his son was deceased. Someday, he said, he hopes the tears will come and he can find relief.

For now, his son’s ashes are on his desk inside a brown box painted with a red hummingbird and two white flowers.

Every night before he goes to bed, Joe Toves walks by the desk, kisses the box and tells his son that he loves him. It is still just the two of them in the two-bedroom town house in Grover Beach.

Knoll is a Times staff writer.

corina.knoll@latimes.com