thedrifter
06-22-07, 07:34 AM
06/22/2007
Community mourns fallen Marine
By: Shawn Charniga , The Record
DELMAR - During the last face-to-face conversation U.S. Marine Sgt. Shawn Martin had with his mother Dawn, who asked him not to go to Iraq as he was her only son, his response was that he had to go, a family friend said Thursday.
At about 8:30 Wednesday night, his family received word Martin, 30, had been killed.
Terence Hannigan, a longtime family friend who served with Martin's father Paul on the Elsmere Fire Department, said that less than 24 hours after the small family received word of the death, the news was still sinking in. Martin, who followed his father into the fire department, joined the Corps in 2000 and first touched Iraqi soil one month ago today.
Hannigan, an attorney from Glenmont who is acting as a family spokesman, said Martin recently served as part of a bomb disposal unit called the Explosive Ordinance Destruction unit and was scheduled for a transfer to another duty in a few weeks. He was killed Wednesday, at 5 p.m. Iraqi time, near the town of Saglawiyah, Hannigan said.
The last time his family heard from him was the day he arrived in Iraq, May 22, according to Hannigan, who forwarded the following e-mail which Martin sent to his family that day:
"I wanted to say thank you for all the support that you give all of us. I am looking forward to coming home soon and seeing all of you again. I want you all to know that I love you and miss you all very much. I thank God that I wake up every morning and put on this uniform with the knowledge of knowing that for all that I sacrifice today allows you all to have a safer and brighter tomorrow. Again I thank you all for all the support you give me and my brothers in arms. All my love. Shawn."
As of Thursday, the federal Department of Defense had not verified Martin's death, and a spokesman declined to verify the serviceman's passing. The newest data available from the government, as of 10 a.m. Thursday, shows 3,535 American military and civilian deaths in Iraq though it's not clear if Martin was counted among these persons.
"He was part of a team that neutralizes IEDs (improvised explosive devices), and we've come to find out they've been targeted now, the bomb disposal guys," Hannigan said. "Apparently, what has been suggested is these people are targets because of what they do."
Hannigan said the Marines have yet to give family and friends a clear picture of how Martin died, but from what they have been told, he was at a site where a bomb had been found but was not in the process of dismantling the bomb. The explosion that killed him may have been from a secondary device, Hannigan said.
Before graduating Bethlehem High School in 1995, he played football from 1991 until his senior year. After graduation, he joined the same fire department his father and grandfather had been part of, family friends said.
"Shawn kind of grew up in the firehouse. When he grew up enough to join, he joined," Hannigan said.
"He climbed all over the fire trucks when he was a kid. He wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. He always said he couldn't wait to join," family friend Tom Heffernan said.
On Thursday mourning, the atmosphere at the fire house was solemn as word spread about Martin's death.
According to Hannigan and other family friends, Martin made the decision to join the Marines around the time of his 23rd birthday and was initially trained as a sharpshooter and assigned to an anti-terrorism task force.
He returned home for his sister Nicole's wedding in September 2001 but was summoned back to duty after the terrorist attacks that month.
He was recruited by EOD and later trained in Florida for nine months prior to deployment, and was scheduled to rotate off the unit after a three-month period.
Prior to deploying to Iraq in April, Martin served in Cuba, Italy, Hungary and Spain and was part of a detail assigned to protect President Bush in the fall of 2001, family friends said.
This spring, assigned to the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., Martin learned he was headed to Iraq after two earlier deployments were scuttled.
According to Hannigan, his mother implored him not to go, saying that as the last male in the Martin line it could be arranged so that he didn't have to go.
"'Don't you dare - this is what I want to do,'" Hannigan said, quoting the son's last words to his mother. "He believed in what he did."
In addition to his parents and sister, Martin is survived by his wife Marianne, a native of the Amsterdam area whom he wed in 2002, and his niece, Kyra.
From the Delmar area, Thomas D. Robbins and Timothy Moshier were also killed in Iraq.
Ellie
Community mourns fallen Marine
By: Shawn Charniga , The Record
DELMAR - During the last face-to-face conversation U.S. Marine Sgt. Shawn Martin had with his mother Dawn, who asked him not to go to Iraq as he was her only son, his response was that he had to go, a family friend said Thursday.
At about 8:30 Wednesday night, his family received word Martin, 30, had been killed.
Terence Hannigan, a longtime family friend who served with Martin's father Paul on the Elsmere Fire Department, said that less than 24 hours after the small family received word of the death, the news was still sinking in. Martin, who followed his father into the fire department, joined the Corps in 2000 and first touched Iraqi soil one month ago today.
Hannigan, an attorney from Glenmont who is acting as a family spokesman, said Martin recently served as part of a bomb disposal unit called the Explosive Ordinance Destruction unit and was scheduled for a transfer to another duty in a few weeks. He was killed Wednesday, at 5 p.m. Iraqi time, near the town of Saglawiyah, Hannigan said.
The last time his family heard from him was the day he arrived in Iraq, May 22, according to Hannigan, who forwarded the following e-mail which Martin sent to his family that day:
"I wanted to say thank you for all the support that you give all of us. I am looking forward to coming home soon and seeing all of you again. I want you all to know that I love you and miss you all very much. I thank God that I wake up every morning and put on this uniform with the knowledge of knowing that for all that I sacrifice today allows you all to have a safer and brighter tomorrow. Again I thank you all for all the support you give me and my brothers in arms. All my love. Shawn."
As of Thursday, the federal Department of Defense had not verified Martin's death, and a spokesman declined to verify the serviceman's passing. The newest data available from the government, as of 10 a.m. Thursday, shows 3,535 American military and civilian deaths in Iraq though it's not clear if Martin was counted among these persons.
"He was part of a team that neutralizes IEDs (improvised explosive devices), and we've come to find out they've been targeted now, the bomb disposal guys," Hannigan said. "Apparently, what has been suggested is these people are targets because of what they do."
Hannigan said the Marines have yet to give family and friends a clear picture of how Martin died, but from what they have been told, he was at a site where a bomb had been found but was not in the process of dismantling the bomb. The explosion that killed him may have been from a secondary device, Hannigan said.
Before graduating Bethlehem High School in 1995, he played football from 1991 until his senior year. After graduation, he joined the same fire department his father and grandfather had been part of, family friends said.
"Shawn kind of grew up in the firehouse. When he grew up enough to join, he joined," Hannigan said.
"He climbed all over the fire trucks when he was a kid. He wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. He always said he couldn't wait to join," family friend Tom Heffernan said.
On Thursday mourning, the atmosphere at the fire house was solemn as word spread about Martin's death.
According to Hannigan and other family friends, Martin made the decision to join the Marines around the time of his 23rd birthday and was initially trained as a sharpshooter and assigned to an anti-terrorism task force.
He returned home for his sister Nicole's wedding in September 2001 but was summoned back to duty after the terrorist attacks that month.
He was recruited by EOD and later trained in Florida for nine months prior to deployment, and was scheduled to rotate off the unit after a three-month period.
Prior to deploying to Iraq in April, Martin served in Cuba, Italy, Hungary and Spain and was part of a detail assigned to protect President Bush in the fall of 2001, family friends said.
This spring, assigned to the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., Martin learned he was headed to Iraq after two earlier deployments were scuttled.
According to Hannigan, his mother implored him not to go, saying that as the last male in the Martin line it could be arranged so that he didn't have to go.
"'Don't you dare - this is what I want to do,'" Hannigan said, quoting the son's last words to his mother. "He believed in what he did."
In addition to his parents and sister, Martin is survived by his wife Marianne, a native of the Amsterdam area whom he wed in 2002, and his niece, Kyra.
From the Delmar area, Thomas D. Robbins and Timothy Moshier were also killed in Iraq.
Ellie