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thedrifter
08-22-06, 06:28 AM
Hundreds of mourners give Marine final salute
Car crash near home left 19-year-old dead
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
BY RALPH R. ORTEGA
Star-Ledger Staff

Kyle Donnelly returned home to Lambertville last week to spend time with friends and family before the Marines deployed the 19-year-old private to Iraq next month.

His mother said she had braced herself for the dangers of his pending assignment, but not for the tragedy that claimed Donnelly's life Thursday night when his Jeep crashed on a narrow, heavily wooded road in West Amwell.

"He was less than a minute from home" Wendy Schmutz Don nelly said yesterday during her son's wake. The service was held at a church across the Delaware River in Pennsylvania to accommodate hundreds of mourners.

Donnelly, a Marine for almost a year, graduated from South Hunterdon High School in 2005. Dozens of his fellow graduates, as well as current students, came to St. Mar tin's of Tours Roman Catholic Church in New Hope, Pa., to say farewell.

"I don't want to believe it. He had a lot to look forward to," said close friend and fellow graduate Rob Brown, 19, who was among many struggling with Donnelly's death.

Police said Donnelly was driving a 1994 Jeep on Goat Hill Road in West Amwell, which leads into Lambertville, around 11:40 p.m. Thursday when he appeared to swerve. He may have been trying to avoid a deer, said West Amwell Police Lt. Stephen Bartzak.

Bartzak said Donnelly lost control of the Jeep, the vehicle left the road, rolled over several times and struck a tree. Donnelly was flown by helicopter to an area hospital, where he died early Friday, police said.

"He had driven up and down that road hundreds of times, be cause he's lived there all his life," Wendy Schmutz Donnelly said. She said her son was on his way home after a night out visiting friends.

Donnelly played baseball and football while in high school. He ex celled in history classes, and planned eventually to go to college, his mother said. But that would be after serving in the Marines, which he had longed to join since he was in the fourth grade, she said.

As a child, Donnelly played manhunt games while wearing military-styled face paint and fatigues, she said. Schmutz Donnelly be lieved it was only a phase until years later, when her son expressed interest in the military during his junior year at South Hunterdon.

"We knew he wanted to join the Marines. We just thought we could talk him out of it," she said, admit ting she dreaded allowing her son to join during a time of war.

But Donnelly, she remembered, had a message for anyone who questioned his motives: "You tell them I'm doing this so that their kids don't have to do it," she recalled her son saying. He came home on leave last week and was to be deployed to Iraq in early September, she said.

Donnelly was in his dress uniform in an open casket yesterday, with a leather-bound Bible under his gloved hand. There also was a dagger left by one of several of his fellow Marines who stood guard be side several bouquets of roses.

"The reason he wanted to be a Marine was because he wanted be part of the best, and he was," said Pfc. Thomas Ennis, a childhood friend who attended boot camp with Donnelly.

Mourners, who wrote messages and sympathy cards sent to the family, and left at the crash site, expressed how much they would miss Donnelly's dry sense of humor, and a caring spirit he had toward oth ers.

"These kids are pouring their hearts (out) over how much they looked up to him. It's so comforting that so many people thought so highly of him," said his mother. "I just hope he knew that."

Donnelly also is survived by his father, Kevin J. Donnelly; sister, Megan E. Donnelly; and paternal grandmother, Roseann Donnelly.

A funeral Mass will be held at 10:30 a.m. today at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Lambertville. Burial will follow at Holcombe Riverview Cemetery in Delaware Township.

Ralph R. Ortega may be reached at rortega@starledger.com, or at (908) 429-9925.

Ellie