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Shaffer
10-15-02, 08:20 AM
CAMP PENDLETON - As 1,200 Camp Pendleton Marines memorialized a fallen
comrade Friday, his mother asked that President George W. Bush keep her
remaining twin son safe.
"I am grateful that they held a memorial," Norma Figueroa said in a brief
telephone interview. "Now, I want them to transfer Mikey (back to the United
States)."
Marine Lance Cpl. Antonio J. Sledd, 20, was killed this week by suspected
al-Qaida terrorists while training near Kuwait. Her other son, Mike, also a
Marine, is stationed in Okinawa.
As the ceremony started, a Marine planted an M-16 in the ground, put a
helmet on its stock and left a pair of empty boots.
"Cpl. Sledd, you have completed your task," Lt. Cmdr. Herbert Griffin, a
Marine chaplain, said during the ceremony on the base, just south of Orange
County. "Your mission on Earth was done."
While none of Sledd's family attended the memorial service, family of
Sledd's platoon compatriots did, as well as his Oceanside roommates.
They hugged and cried as Marines read, "We will make you proud." Col. Joe
Dowdy, commanding officer of the 1st Marine Regiment, said the Marines won't
forget Sledd's sacrifice. "Cpl. Sledd is our brother."
Afterward, his roommates recalled Sledd as a dedicated Marine who wrote
often after being deployed to the Middle East.
He also had other interests, said roommate Laura Zeller, 26. Foremost among
them: his silver 1999 Ford Mustang. He also baked chocolate-chip cookies
with his roommates and begged them to make him egg burritos. "He loved to
eat," Zeller said.
"He couldn't wait to get home," she said.