Californians Among 31 Killed in Helicopter Crash

Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class John D. House missed the birth of his first child on Christmas Eve and was excited about returning to Hawaii from Iraq this month to finally hold his son.

House, 28, was a medical corpsman on his second tour in the region, having first served in Bahrain and Kuwait in 2002 preparing for the invasion of Iraq. He returned in September with a Marine Corps battalion also stationed at Pearl Harbor.

He saw action in Fallouja and was part of the U.S. forces providing security before last weekend’s elections.

On Jan. 26, four days before ballots were cast, the former Simi Valley resident was killed along with 30 Marines when their military transport helicopter crashed during bad weather near Rutbah, in western Iraq.

“I miss the fact that we’ll never be able to see him with his baby, to be a father himself, because I know he would have been a good one,” said his father, Larry, a Simi Valley resident and Ventura County sheriff’s deputy.

Although he once considered a Navy career, the younger House decided that, after his son, James, was born, a profession that included combat was not ideal for a family.

John Daniel House, born in an area known as “Steel Valley” near Pittsburgh, was 6 when his parents moved him, younger brother James and sister Elizabeth to Ventura County.

The 1995 graduate of Moorpark High School is remembered by athletic director Rob Dearborn, who taught him biology, as “a good-natured kid, great to be around.”

House met his future wife, Melanie, in his senior year and worked several jobs, including as a carpenter at Pepperdine University, before joining the Navy in December 1998. While on leave in June 2000, House returned home to watch his sister graduate from La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks. Then he and his fiancee traveled to Las Vegas and were married by an Elvis impersonator.

“He once told us that Larry and I made him out of love, that the military made him a man and Melanie made him whole,” said his mother, Susan, adding that she had no regrets that her son joined the military.

Larry House speaks proudly of recently meeting a Marine wearing a soft cast who had been treated by his son in Fallouja after a bomb crashed a wall upon him. He recounted how physicians later told him it was “Doc House’s” immediate care that saved his leg.

More than 500 people attended a memorial ceremony for House on Thursday at the chapel at Naval Station Pearl Harbor. Funeral services and burial are scheduled to be held Feb. 15 at Mount Sinai Memorial Park in Simi Valley.