thedrifter
02-10-06, 09:19 AM
Lejeune Marine had just met dad
By Jay Price, Staff Writer
One of the five Camp Lejeune Marines who died in Iraq early this week left an unusual set of survivors.
Lance Cpl. Steven L. Phillips, 27, of Spraggs, Penn., was adopted, said his mother, and only in the past year or so had he met his biological father.
Phillips began looking for him when he was in high school, but his mother located Joe Wright in West Virginia while Phillips was in Afghanistan in 2004. Wright and Phillips traded e-mail messages and phone calls but couldn't meet until Christmas that year.
"Now Joe comes to the house and they'll go off fishing," Paulette Phillips said. "Or, they did."
Phillips died Tuesday in a vehicle accident while on a combat operation against insurgents near Al Qaim. He was among three Lejeune Marines killed in western Iraq whom the Pentagon identified Thursday.
Also killed were Pfc. Jacob D. Spann, 21, of Columbus, Ohio, who died Monday from wounds suffered when a bomb exploded near his Humvee in the city of Hit. Cpl. Brandon S. Schuck, 21, of Safford, Ariz., was killed the same day in a different bomb attack, in the town of Baghdadi.
Two other Marines died in Spann's Humvee. The Pentagon released their names earlier.
Spann was a machine-gunner with Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit. He joined the Marines in January 2005 and arrived at Camp Lejeune in June. His brother, Derek, said Thursday that the family didn't feel like talking.
"We're just kind of spent on the subject right now," he said.
Schuck was a combat engineer with the 8th Engineer Support Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, II Marine Expeditionary Force. A Camp Lejeune spokesman said he left behind a wife and young son.
The three Marines killed in Hit were due to leave Iraq within days, as was Phillips.
He was planning to spend April at home, said Paulette Phillips in a telephone interview from Spraggs, a town in coal mining country on the Pennsyvlannia-West Virginia border.
Phillips was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. He was a machinegunner who had been specially trained for breaching doors and bunkers. It was his first tour in Iraq, but not his first taste of combat: He had served two tours in Afghanistan, his mother said.
At Waynesburg Central High School, he was part of the tight-knit drum line; his mother and father, Jim Phillips, pulled the band's trailer to games.
After high school, a full scholarship from the Air Force ROTC took him to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. Fla. He dreamed of working for NASA but got slotted into a dull major. He also didn't care much for Florida. "It was taking the country boy and putting him in the big city, and it didn't work out too well," his mother said.
He came home, studied computer-aided drafting and got a job in that field. But in 2003, he joined the Marines, she said.
Lately, Phillips had decided that when his enlistment was up in about a year that he would return to Embry-Riddle, this time for pilot training.
The bad news came Tuesday afternoon, when a Navy van with a police escort rolled up the hill to the Phillips house.
After the sailors left, the first call Paulette Phillips made was to Joe Wright, to tell him that the son he had just found was gone again.
"He was on the road and he had to pull over and stop," she said. "He got physically sick."
(News researcher Denise Jones contributed to this story.)
Ellie
By Jay Price, Staff Writer
One of the five Camp Lejeune Marines who died in Iraq early this week left an unusual set of survivors.
Lance Cpl. Steven L. Phillips, 27, of Spraggs, Penn., was adopted, said his mother, and only in the past year or so had he met his biological father.
Phillips began looking for him when he was in high school, but his mother located Joe Wright in West Virginia while Phillips was in Afghanistan in 2004. Wright and Phillips traded e-mail messages and phone calls but couldn't meet until Christmas that year.
"Now Joe comes to the house and they'll go off fishing," Paulette Phillips said. "Or, they did."
Phillips died Tuesday in a vehicle accident while on a combat operation against insurgents near Al Qaim. He was among three Lejeune Marines killed in western Iraq whom the Pentagon identified Thursday.
Also killed were Pfc. Jacob D. Spann, 21, of Columbus, Ohio, who died Monday from wounds suffered when a bomb exploded near his Humvee in the city of Hit. Cpl. Brandon S. Schuck, 21, of Safford, Ariz., was killed the same day in a different bomb attack, in the town of Baghdadi.
Two other Marines died in Spann's Humvee. The Pentagon released their names earlier.
Spann was a machine-gunner with Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit. He joined the Marines in January 2005 and arrived at Camp Lejeune in June. His brother, Derek, said Thursday that the family didn't feel like talking.
"We're just kind of spent on the subject right now," he said.
Schuck was a combat engineer with the 8th Engineer Support Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, II Marine Expeditionary Force. A Camp Lejeune spokesman said he left behind a wife and young son.
The three Marines killed in Hit were due to leave Iraq within days, as was Phillips.
He was planning to spend April at home, said Paulette Phillips in a telephone interview from Spraggs, a town in coal mining country on the Pennsyvlannia-West Virginia border.
Phillips was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. He was a machinegunner who had been specially trained for breaching doors and bunkers. It was his first tour in Iraq, but not his first taste of combat: He had served two tours in Afghanistan, his mother said.
At Waynesburg Central High School, he was part of the tight-knit drum line; his mother and father, Jim Phillips, pulled the band's trailer to games.
After high school, a full scholarship from the Air Force ROTC took him to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. Fla. He dreamed of working for NASA but got slotted into a dull major. He also didn't care much for Florida. "It was taking the country boy and putting him in the big city, and it didn't work out too well," his mother said.
He came home, studied computer-aided drafting and got a job in that field. But in 2003, he joined the Marines, she said.
Lately, Phillips had decided that when his enlistment was up in about a year that he would return to Embry-Riddle, this time for pilot training.
The bad news came Tuesday afternoon, when a Navy van with a police escort rolled up the hill to the Phillips house.
After the sailors left, the first call Paulette Phillips made was to Joe Wright, to tell him that the son he had just found was gone again.
"He was on the road and he had to pull over and stop," she said. "He got physically sick."
(News researcher Denise Jones contributed to this story.)
Ellie