3 Missing Marines Confirmed Dead

On March 25, as members of the U.S. Marine Corps were shuttling supplies across the Euphrates River in southern Iraq, a tank apparently plunged into the water, killing three Marines who a month earlier had lived and worked in Twentynine Palms.

Two of those Marines, Patrick T. O’Day and Francisco A. Martinez Flores, were from California. The third, Donald C. May Jr., came from Virginia, but lived with his wife and two children at the military base in the California desert.

Their deaths saddened many in Twentynine Palms, a small town dominated by its Marine base.

It also marked the latest war burden in this conflict born by immigrants and noncitizens fighting under the American flag. Both Martinez Flores and O’Day arrived in the United States at the age of 3, one from Mexico, the other from Scotland. Neither was a U.S. citizen.

Two of the dead, O’Day and May, were expecting children.

On Sunday, they were listed as missing in action after troops found material from their tank; then, when the tank was found submerged in the Euphrates, their families received the word they had feared: All three were dead.

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Pfc. Francisco A. Martinez Flores

Martinez Flores, 21, was two weeks away from becoming a U.S. citizen when he died in Iraq, said his mother, Martha Martinez.

Like many of the California-based soldiers and Marines who have died in Iraq, Martinez Flores was born in another country and came to the United States as a child. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, he came with his family from the Mexican state of Jalisco. Family and friends who saw the young man grow up in Duarte say he had wanted to be “a great soldier” since he was a child.

He attended Maxwell Elementary School and graduated from Duarte High School in 2000. He played football in high school. He was the oldest of three siblings, two sisters and a brother. One of them, Nayeli Martinez, 19, said Monday that her brother liked fixing cars and had a 1954 Ford that he and his father liked to tinker with.

Outgoing, Martinez Flores was surrounded by a large circle of friends, with whom he spent his weekends.

The military helped the young man mature, according to friends and family members. After he joined, “every time he returned, he was very respectful,” said a family friend, Cecilia Anguiano, whose daughters grew up with the young man. “His mother said, ‘They returned to me a true man.’ ”

Martinez Flores’ death ended his ambition to work as a police detective.

It also left a grieving girlfriend and meant that his mother did not live to see her son married. “I only dreamed of him married, a realized man,” she said.

His death was the second tragedy for the Martinez Flores family in two months.

Martha Martinez’s father died in Mexico in mid-January. She was there when her son was deployed.

As a result, she did not get a chance to say goodbye.

“I only asked God to return him to me, dead or alive,” she said.

“My son went to battle because he was a valiant man and he wanted to go,” Martha Martinez said, holding a portrait of him in uniform.

Her son wrote to her in late February. “He was very optimistic. He told me to not be afraid,” she recalled. “In his last letter, he told me to pray.”

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Staff Sgt. Donald C. May Jr.

May, 31, was part of a tank battalion that deployed in January from the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms. He was married to Deborah May. They lived on the base with their 7-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son. Deborah is pregnant, expecting a son, according to Marine officials.

Outside, merchants and residents of the small town expressed sadness that the war had, for the first time, cost the lives of their neighbors.

“A lot of local business owners are former or retired Marines, so we understand the consequences,” said Mike Collins, the owner of a Radio Shack in town and a retired Marine who served during the Vietnam War.

“We grieve and cry and bleed the way the rest of the world does.”

Although May and his colleagues in the tank did not die by enemy gunfire, their neighbors considered them war heroes nonetheless.

“For me,” said retired Marine Sgt. Tim Aylesworth, whose friend died in his arms in 1998 at Camp Pendleton after a vehicle went over a cliff, “whether it’s an accident or they’re shot at, it still hurts.”

May was a native of Richmond, Va., but trained and lived in Twentynine Palms. He served as a platoon sergeant and had been stationed there since September 2001, officials said.

They declined to offer more, but the family released a statement written by Deborah May in memory of her husband.

“He was a good family man,” the statement read. “He balanced his family life with his work life very well. His family was always his No. 1 priority. He was very proud that he was doing what he wanted to be doing. He had a great sense of humor. Everywhere he went he made friends. He is one of those people you will never forget. He was the guy with the big smile. He loved his family. He was so focused on making every member of the family happy. He would do anything for his family. He loved life and he made life fun.”

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Lance Cpl. Patrick T. O’Day

The Santa Rosa family of O’Day, 20, emerged briefly Sunday to discuss his feared death -- before word late that night confirmed it. On Monday, they declined to elaborate, saying they preferred to make their only comments to their local paper, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

In that paper’s account, O’Day’s wife and mother described a young man between lives, done with high school and on the brink of fatherhood. His wife, Shauna O’Day, is expecting their first child in September.

His mother, Angela O’Day, said her son was a quick learner who was reading by age 3. The family arrived that same year from Scotland.

The oldest of four boys, O’Day was exuberant and tough. He was a wrestler and a good student, quick with words, easy with a smile, his wife and his mother told the Santa Rosa paper. At 16, he worked as a cashier at the local JC Penney to save money for a car. A year later, after working nights and weekends, he bought one.

He approached his Marine service with similar diligence, they said. At one point during boot camp, he developed stress fractures in his legs. But he persisted with his service and, having completed it, looked forward to shipping out on what he called his “Persian Excursion.”

“We had 20 years with him,” Angela O’Day told the Press-Democrat. “And he brought us great joy.”