Updated at 9:58 a.m., Friday, February 4, 2005
Hawai'i-based Marine killed in Iraq
Associated Press
GRAYSLAKE, Ill. — Lance Cpl. Sean Maher had just two days left to serve in Iraq when the 19-year-old Marine from this northern Illinois community was killed in an ambush, his family said. |
| Lance Cpl. Sean Maher, a Hawai'i-based Marine deployed to Iraq, was killed Wednesday in the Al Anbar Province.
Family photo |
The Pentagon announced his death today. Maher was a mortarman with the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, 1st Marine Division based at Marine Corps Base Hawai'i at Kane'ohe Bay.
Maher's parents, Dan and Janet Maher, and his 16-year-old sister, Katie, learned of his death yesterday morning when Marines rang the bell at the family's home.
"Sean was a very kind young man," O'Keefe said. "He was always there to help you. He was the kind of kid everyone wanted for their own."
The couple also has a 22-year-old son, Dan, who is serving in the Navy. His ship is in dry dock in San Diego, O'Keefe said.
Described as kind, generous and athletic, Sean Maher enlisted in August 2003 because he thought he could make a difference in Iraq, O'Keefe said. He arrived in Hawai'i in February of last year, and in July went to Okinawa, where his battalion attached to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, which then deployed to Iraq in September.
In Maher's memory, flags were lowered to half-staff throughout the nearby community of Gurnee where he graduated from Warren Township High School in 2003.
Grief counselors came to the high school yesterday to talk with students and faculty who knew Maher, said Mary Olson, director of instruction at the school.
He was the second Warren Township graduate killed in Iraq. Maher played football with Geoffrey S. Morris, 19, of Gurnee, who died April 4 in combat between Marines and enemy forces in Iraq's Al Anbar province.
Yesterday morning, state Sen. Adeline Geo-Karis announced Maher's death on the Senate floor at the Illinois state Capitol in Springfield. She called him a "fabulous athlete" and a "wonderful boy."
A total of 78 soldiers, Marines and sailors with ties to Hawai'i have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003. The largest loss came Jan. 26, when 26 Hawai'i Marines and a sailor died in the crash of a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter in western Iraq. The crash killed all 31 aboard.
Advertiser staff contributed to this report.
