Memorial honors Iraq war dead

CAMP PENDLETON -- Sandra Aceves and Sheila Cobb leaned together for support Friday as their sons and others killed in Iraq were praised as heroes who died to bring freedom to the Iraqi people.

The American flag, at half-staff, was whipped by a cold wind as the Marines dedicated a memorial to 221 troops -- Marines, sailors and soldiers -- killed in Iraq while attached to the 5th Marine Regiment.

“This helps me,” said Cobb of Bradenton, Fla. “Maybe now I can go on with my life, knowing that there is a memorial to my son and the others.”

Marine Pfc. Christopher Cobb, 19, and Navy corpsman Fernando Mendez-Aceves, 27, were killed in 2004 as they raced in a Humvee to help Marines engaged in a firefight with insurgents in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. At the time, the young men’s mothers were strangers.

Now the mothers have bonded and communicate frequently. They were in the front row at the ceremony. Tears filled their eyes.

“We know what it’s like. We try to help each other through the pain,” said Aceves, who lives in Chula Vista, near San Diego.

The ceremony comes as the regiment is preparing to return to Iraq’s Anbar province, west of Baghdad.

Col. Patrick Malay, the regimental commanding officer, said it is appropriate to honor the fallen “before we return to Iraq to continue the noble endeavors they initiated.”

The names of the dead were etched into a 7-by-9-foot edifice of polished granite, a project underwritten by the Regimental Combat Team 5 Memorial Fund, a private support group in Dana Point.

Behind each name is a family’s story of grief. Each is individual, but common themes emerge: the struggle to cope with loss, pride in a son’s service, relief that his sacrifice will not be forgotten.

Lance Cpl. Eric Hillenburg’s father, a Baptist minister, is convinced that his son’s death was part of God’s plan.

A scholarship has been set up in the Marine’s name, and his high school has a display with his basketball jersey and letterman’s jacket.

“Our God is too good to do wrong, too wise to make a mistake,” the Rev. Jerry Hillenburg, senior pastor at New Hope Baptist Church in Indianapolis, said in a telephone interview. “We trust our Lord. My son died a hero’s death.”

Eric Hillenburg, 21, was killed as Marines stormed insurgent strongholds in Fallouja in late 2004. Malay, who was a battalion commander, told the family that the young man had saved Marines by pinning down the insurgents during the battle, Hillenburg’s father said.

Judy Childers, whose son, 2nd Lt. Therrel Childers, is listed as the first Marine killed in Iraq, said his death led the Marines to provide better body armor and thus saved lives.

Childers, 30, was killed as Marines moved across the Kuwait border in March 2003 to keep Saddam Hussein’s forces from destroying oil wells.

The family keeps a U.S. flag, a Marine Corps flag and fresh flowers on his grave in the cemetery near the family home in North Branch, Minn.

“He’s present with us in spirit, he’s in our hearts,” Judy Childers said. “We don’t need to visit the cemetery as often.”

Marjorie Benson’s son, Lance Cpl. Johnathan Benson, 21, died in fall 2006 after spending weeks at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio with injuries suffered when his Humvee struck a roadside bomb in Habbaniya, west of Baghdad. His left leg and part of his left arm were gone.

Benson, from her home in Powell, Wyo., said that in the months after her son’s death she suffered depression so severe that sometimes she was unable to function.

Then, she said, her son came to her in a dream. He was healthy, happy and laughing, and told her, “Mom, you’ve got to let me go. I’m up here with God now,” she said.

Letting go, however, does not mean forgetting. Since his death, the family puts a special ornament on their Christmas tree, with a picture of him in his Marine uniform.

“Family was important before Johnathan’s death,” his mother said. “It’s even more important now.”

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tony.perry@latimes.com