Lance Cpl. Aaron C. Pickering

He was far from his small-town home in southern Illinois and even farther from his Marine Corps friends in Hawai'i where he was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment.

But in death, Pickering is closer than ever to the hearts of those who loved him.

In Harrisburg, where he graduated from high school, government flags were lowered to half-staff, said his father, Carl Pickering, a 43-year-old corrections officer and volunteer firefighter.

His son is being remembered as a hero, he said.

"It is a shame that he has to be dead to be a hero," Carl Pickering said, emotions barely in check. "This is especially hard because we lost a daughter five years ago to a car accident. He was my only one left."

Pickering is the eighth Hawai'i-based Marine to die in combat in less than two weeks.

Hawai'i-based soldiers with the Army's 25th Infantry Division (Light) from Schofield Barracks have suffered nine casualties in Iraq and seven in Afghanistan since deploying early this year.

More than 13,000 Hawai'i-based soldiers and Marines are deployed in the region with another 1,000 Marines also on their way to Afghanistan.

The grim news arrived at the Pickering home on Veterans Day when two uniformed Marines from St. Louis knocked on the front door at 5 in the morning.

They told Pickering that his son was dead, but could not tell him how he had died.

"We don't know anything yet," the father said. "They couldn't explain to me what had happened except that it happened in Fallujah. We are assuming it was a gunshot, but we are not sure."

Aaron Pickering joined the Marines right out of high school. He had been on the track and golf teams. He had scholarship offers, too.

"He could have gone anywhere he wanted to," his father said. "This is what he wanted to do."

Aaron Pickering saw life as a series of challenges, his father said.

"He was a very physical person," he said. "Anything he'd done, he'd done it all out. If it was not a challenge, he would not do it."

In the Marines, he chose the infantry. Boot camp was grueling, but the hardest part was being away from his family, Pickering's father said.

Marine Corps Base Hawai'i in Kane'ohe was his first assignment. He was sent to Iraq with the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, and had been in country less than a month.

Aaron Pickering last called his father Nov. 1 to tell him the Marines were preparing for a serious fight.

He knew it would be dangerous, his father said.

"He told me it would be a little while before he would be able to call me again," Carl Pickering said. "He wouldn't elaborate. He was a very ... he kept his emotions a lot on the inside. He didn't want to worry you."

Of course, his father worried anyway. When the fighting began in Fallujah on Monday, the elder Pickering was glued to his television set.

"Not anymore," he said. "Not since this."

Since the offensive began five days ago, 22 Marines have been killed and 140 wounded. U.S. commanders in the region say the battle is far from over.