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crackernutz
10-04-07, 03:25 PM
Fellow servicemen knew him as "Doc."

He called them "his guys."
Here at home, he was known as a caring son and a boy who had grown into a dedicated professional.
Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Mark Russell Cannon of Lubbock died Tuesday in Afghanistan of a gunshot wound to the chest, preliminary reports given to his family indicate.
Cannon, 31, enlisted in the Navy in 2003 and cared for sick and wounded Marines, according to information provided by Navy officials.
<MCC PHOTOTABLE><TABLE cellPadding=8 align=right><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE width=176 bgColor=#e7e7e7 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>http://www.lubbockonline.com/images/20071004/87197_256.jpg (http://www.lubbockonline.com/images/20071004/87197_512.jpg) </TD></TR><TR bgColor=#e7e7e7><TD align=right></TD></TR><TR><TD bgColor=#e7e7e7>M. Cannon

</TD></TR><SW_PICTOPIA></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></MCC PHOTOTABLE>Earlier this year, he volunteered to go to Afghanistan with the 3rd Marine Regiment of Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.
He had been in that country since July, said his father, Tom Cannon, also of Lubbock.
The sailor is the second serviceman from the area to die within days in the war on terror. Sgt. Randell Olguin, 24, of Ralls died Sunday from wounds inflicted during an attack on his unit in Baghdad, the Department of Defense announced.
Cannon is the 18th area person to die in the war on terror since 2001 and the fifth to die this year, said Tami Swoboda with the Lubbock Area Foundation, which aids families of fallen military men and women.
Cannon was a 1994 graduate of Coronado High School and was trained as a nurse at South Plains College.
He stood approximately 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighed about 250 pounds. Behind the giant was another side, those who knew him said.
"He had a real tender, soft side to him which went well with his interest in the medical field. He had that manner that could make people feel good," his father said.
This was his son's second tour in a war zone.
Mark's mother, Becky, died of a heart attack in 2006. Six days later, he had to leave his hometown to serve in Iraq, his father said.
Last Christmas, his father, a new widower, went to Hawaii to visit his only child. Bits of his son's tour in Iraq were captured on a video, which he watched.
"(Someone in the video said) 'Here comes Doc. He's as big as an ox and half as smart.' They kidded everyone, but they also had this camaraderie and they all protected their 'docs' because they were so important to their unit. They were the ones with the ability to care for the wounded. That's what he did. And not just for American soldiers, but for Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi police," said Tom Cannon, as the American flag on his lawn blew back and forth in the wind.
The flag is usually there on the lawn. Cannon recently took it down because of heavy winds. He raised it again Tuesday morning after two Navy officers came to his front door to tell him his son, who decided to join the Navy after 9/11, had been killed in an attack.
"9/11 had a large impact on Mark. After 9/11, he really thought he needed to do something in the public service field for his country," his father said from his home, where photographs of his wife and son rest on tables, the wall, the refrigerator.
His son, he explained, grew up around public service.
Tom Cannon was a criminal defense attorney and later a Lubbock County court-at-law judge. Becky Cannon was the founding director of Lubbock Rape Crisis Center.
War, the father noticed, had changed his son, who loved Texas barbecue and Mexican food.
"What I could sense in Mark was that he had a lot less tolerance for people that would whine about trivial things. He saw things in a bigger picture.
"Mark thought, 'We take the war to them or they will be here again,' " his father said.
In their last phone conversation, in early August, Mark told his father that Afghan insurgents were much more sophisticated than those he encountered in Iraq.
He spent most of his time there caring for wounded Afghan children who were marred by shrapnel and mortar attacks, he told his father.
Family friend Kelly Whitman watched Mark grow from a tall, skinny boy who couldn't play high school sports because of a knee injury, to a proud warrior.
"I would tell him all the time, 'It's an honor to know you,' " she said.
"He grew up to be very serious about his job. He cared so very much about his guys. He was their leader. ... His guys in Afghanistan - I feel worse for them than I do for us because they lost their doc," Whitman said. Funeral services for Cannon are pending.

thedrifter
10-04-07, 03:29 PM
Rest In Peace

Ellie

FistFu68
10-04-07, 04:44 PM
:usmc: HONOR GOES TO THE MAN THAT KILL'S~GREATER HONOR GOES TO THE MAN THAT HEALS~REST IN PEACE~DOC~SEMPER~FIDELIS :usmc: :iwo:

thedrifter
10-05-07, 03:03 PM
Posted on: Friday, October 5, 2007

Hawaii-based Navy medic died helping wounded
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

Mark Cannon

Mark Cannon was a Navy corpsman, or "doc," with a detachment of Hawai'i-based Marines who were sent to Kunar province in Afghanistan, and his personality lent itself to the job.

At 6 feet 5, the Texan was imposing. His medical care of Marines on a previous deployment to Iraq, along with his maturity at age 31, earned him a lot of respect.

In Afghanistan, the Kane'ohe Bay petty officer 3rd class would take the time to patch up local kids.

"He was kind of a softie on that," his father, Tom, said yesterday. "I mean, as big as he was, he had a real soft, tender side to him, and he loved kids, and he loved helping people."

"Doc" Cannon gave his life on Tuesday doing exactly that, rushing to help a corporal wounded in a firefight.

Tom Cannon got the news yesterday from a Marine officer in Afghanistan that while under fire, his son "went out into the middle of it to try and save this corporal and provide medical assistance to him."

A bullet hit him in the side and went through his chest.

"He had his Kevlar armor on, but I understand he was shot underneath his right arm, and Mark was the only one to die," Tom Cannon said by phone from Lubbock, Texas. "Two others were wounded, but they have survived, thankfully."

Mark Cannon's mother, Becky, died in February 2006, a week before the hospital corpsman deployed to Iraq.

His body is at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, and is expected to be returned to Lubbock by military jet on Saturday. He'll be buried next to his mother.

"He got shot, and he got killed doing what he was trained to do, out there in the middle of stuff, running to try and save somebody," Tom Cannon said.

Family friend Kelly Whitman, who had known Mark Cannon since he was 11, said everyone knew he was dedicated to what he was doing.

"He volunteered to do this, and he believed in it," she said.

THE 'FORGOTTEN WAR'

With the nation's attention focused so much on Iraq, Cannon's death is a reminder of the fight that goes on in Afghanistan, often referred to as the "forgotten war."

Cannon was part of 18- to 22-man teams of Marines and sailors who are sent on continuing rotations to Afghanistan from Kane'ohe Bay to work with the Afghan army as part of embedded training teams, base spokesman 1st Lt. Binford Strickland said. Cannon was with the 3rd Marine Regiment headquarters.

The last battalion-size deployment of about 900 Hawai'i Marines to Afghanistan ended in May 2006. More recently, Kane'ohe Bay battalions have been on continuous rotations to western Iraq.

Mountainous Kunar province is on Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan, and has long been a favored spot for insurgents. Over the past two years, that insurgency has grown in intensity, and in 2006, the Taliban launched a record number of attacks.

Kunar abuts the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan, a region in which al-Qaida militants, including Osama bin Laden, are thought to be hiding.

In June 2005, five Pearl Harbor Navy SEALs were killed in an ill-fated commando mission and crash of a rescue helicopter in Kunar that claimed a total of 16 lives in the deadliest engagement for the U.S. military since the war began in 2001.

Tom Cannon said his son told him, " 'Dad, this is totally different than Iraq, and it's totally worse.' He said these guys — I don't remember the exact words — but he said they know more what they are doing when they throw these bombs and mortars and stuff. He said these guys have a lot more training" than insurgents in Iraq.

A TROUBLED SPOT

His son was killed in an area where U.S. troops had come under fire before, and a spot that erupted in gunfire again.

"They came under fire, and they were returning fire. There was a lot of shooting," Tom Cannon said. He added that he couldn't be prouder of his son for his actions.

Whitman said Mark Cannon loved Hawai'i. He was stationed here in November 2005.

"He said it's just so different," Whitman said. "If you ever come to Lubbock, it's all brown most of the time, but he was a West Texas boy, and he loved the people here. But he just thought Hawai'i was so beautiful."

He had joined the Navy in 2003 after taking classes to be a nurse at South Plains College in Texas.

Whitman knows how Mark Cannon felt about the Marines he served with in Iraq, and has no doubt it was the same with the Marines he was with in Afghanistan.

"They have lost their doc," Whitman said. "It's going to be hard for them, because they have lost somebody very valuable, and we've lost somebody, too."

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Ellie