Word: starcevich
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...When Starcevich went back to the Army in 2005, he specifically requested to be posted with an infantry unit. "I want the nitty-gritty," he told his father. But when he arrived in Baghdad, it was worse than he'd expected. "Hell has an address after all," he wrote to his mom in an e-mail at the time...
...Starcevich was one of those kids who seem born into uniform. As a youth, he had a set of junior fatigues he wore as often as his mother would let him. "I used to have to wait until Lucas went to sleep to get it off him to wash it," says Tomson...
...oldest in his squad, Starcevich looked after the younger soldiers and had his parents send supplies for his group. They needed metal dental picks to get the sand out of their weapons. (His mom and dad bought dozens on eBay.) And rosaries to pray on. (A church group in Tolono, Ill. hand-beaded 400 and shipped them to Baghdad...
...parents, who are divorced, was harrowing. He was part of a small "killer group" of six, conducting patrols and house-to-house searches, and ferreting out snipers. In e-mail to his father, he articulated his fears. In the last message he sent his dad, dated April 3, Starcevich describes surviving three IED blasts and an ambush in a single day. "Man I tell U what," he wrote. "Somebody wants me alive. I just wonder how many more times I can roll the dice b4 I get a shitty #." Thirteen days later, a roadside bomb killed Starcevich in Baghdad...
...from Indiana who used to read the encyclopedia. Mario De Leon re-enlisted in order to support his new family in California. Aaron Genevie, from southwest Pennsylvania, said his mom was his greatest inspiration. Daniel Scherry of Rocky River, Ohio, always wanted to be a Marine. Illinois native Lucas Starcevich helped outfit his platoon when equipment ran short. Jesse De La Torre was a jazz-playing Bible student from Illinois. They had some things in common: several were in Iraq for their second tour of duty. One begged Army doctors just to let him in the first time...