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01/10/2002
MIRAMAR, Calif. — Lance Cpl. Bryan Bertrand had just saved up enough
money to buy a guitar. Gunnery Sgt. Stephen L. Bryson had just called
home to tell his mother he was thinking about her on his birthday.
All the victims were based at the Marine Corps Station in Miramar, near
San Diego. The crash was the worst U.S. casualty toll in the war against
terrorism.
"Any time you hear one Marine, from anywhere, has lost his life, it's
just sad. It's even harder on you when they come from your home base,"
said Maj. T.V. Johnson, director of public affairs at the Miramar base.
The dead included the first U.S. servicewoman to die since the war
began. Sgt. Jeannette L. Winters, 25, of Du Page, Ill., was a radio
operator who joined the Marine Corps in 1997.
Bryson, of Montgomery, Ala., joined the service after graduating from
Montgomery's Robert E. Lee High School in 1983. "He just called to let
me know he was thinking about me on Tuesday. It was his birthday. He
turned 36," Deloris Bryson, Stephen's mother, told The Birmingham News.
Among the other victims were Sgt. Nathan P. Hays, a 21-year-old flight
mechanic, who grew up in Wilbur, Wash., a small town about 55 miles west
of Spokane.
In high school he "was a kid who probably didn't have quite as much
actual football talent as other kids but he always just worked so hard
and was such a team guy," said his former teacher and football coach,
Bill Grigsby.
The parents of Capt. Matthew Bancroft, 29, the pilot of the plane,
recalled Wednesday that their son was 7 years old when he first
announced he wanted to become a pilot.
"This is truly sad," said Bob Osborne, his basketball coach at Burney
High School in Redding, Calif., Bancroft's hometown. "But I think that
if a person has to leave this world, doing it for your country is the
best way to go."
The other victims were identified by the Department of Defense as: the
co-pilot, Capt. Daniel G. McCollum, 29, of Richland, S.C.; and Staff
Sgt. Scott N. Germosen, 37, of New York.
Bertrand, 23, of Coos Bay, Ore., had served as a Marine for three years
and could have been home about a month ago. But he volunteered for
another tour of duty, said his father, Bruce.
"He didn't want to be on the sidelines," Bruce Bertrand said. "He loved
what he was doing."
In one of his last letters, Bryan Bertrand told his parents he'd saved
enough money to buy an electric guitar. It was to be waiting for him
when he returned from his tour of duty in Pakistan.
The dead Marines were part of the Marine Aerial Refueler Transport
Squadron 352, whose history includes service in every major U.S.
military action since World War II.
Known as the "Raiders," the squadron was activated on April 1, 1943. Its
logo shows an aircraft between a pair of crossed swords with the word
"Raiders" above it.
The base, tucked into a nondescript-looking section of San Diego, is
reached by a busy street lined with strip malls, furniture stores,
fast-food restaurants and convenience markets.
"It makes me sad, I know a lot of people from Miramar," said Sarah
Lindsay, a waitress working late Wednesday night at Keith's, a 24-hour
restaurant near the base that is a popular hangout for Marines.
President Bush expressed his condolences for the fallen Marines, saying
the crash was a reminder of "how serious the times are today."
"Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of the soldiers," he
said. "But I want to remind them that the cause that we are now engaged
in is just and noble. The cause is freedom and this nation will not rest
until we've achieved our objective."