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.