Форум: A Marine of Azeri origin killed in Iraq

Marine had always been his own man
S.D. family mourns loss of son, 20, in copter crash
By Rick Rogers
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
January 28, 2005

CHARLIE NEUMAN / Union-Tribune
Rufat and Dinara Ragimov of Carmel Valley pored over photos of their son, Lance Cpl. Mourad Ragimov, who died in Wednesday's copter crash.

Troops killed in helicopter crash identified

On Christmas Eve, Lance Cpl. Mourad Ragimov called his mother in Carmel Valley with a secret he felt he could finally tell her.

The 20-year-old machine gunner wasn't in Hawaii and hadn't been for weeks. Instead, he'd been fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, with the rest of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines.

"He said, 'Mom, I can tell you the truth now because the worst part is past. There will be no more danger,' " Dinara Ragimov recalled yesterday while scanning photos of Mourad from the time he was a baby to just before he left for Iraq.

A flickering candle in the living room lit a picture of Mourad in his dress blues.

Early Wednesday, Ragimov, 26 of his comrades from Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe, a Navy medic from Pearl Harbor and three crew members from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station died in a helicopter crash near the city of Rutbah.

Their deaths, and those of four Marines ambushed in Anbar province, made for the single deadliest day for U.S. fo... полностью