Capt. Lyle Gordon

'I just want to bring my son home'
Two Marines from
Midlothian, Arlington give their lives in Iraq
JEFF MOSIER Staff Writer  
Published: January 29, 2005

Capt. Lyle L. Gordon spent the last few months buzzing the skies of Iraq in his Marine helicopter and pondering his future.

His family said the 30-year-old Midlothian native and his wife of 31/2 years had decided that he would try for a Coast Guard post after his enlistment ended in a few years. A 9-to-5 job on the South Texas shore would allow the couple to raise a family.

That dream ended Wednesday in an early-morning sandstorm that apparently caused the crash of a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter. Capt. Gordon, one of the pilots, and 30 others died, including a fellow North Texan, Lance. Cpl. Saeed Jafarkhani-Torshizi Jr., 24, of Arlington.

"You knew it could happen, but you never think it would be your son," said Capt. Gordon's mother, Mary Gordon.

She said her son, a 1993 graduate of Midlothian High School, always played down the dangers he faced in the treacherous Iraqi skies.

"He would never want me to worry," Mrs. Gordon said, rocking her grandson, Capt. Gordon's nephew.

Between the helicopter crash, which is being investigated, and six other U.S. troops having been killed in ambushes, Wednesday was the deadliest day for Americans in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

Like Capt. Gordon, relatives of Cpl. Jafarkhani-Torshizi said, he had plans for a career back home after the Marines. He wanted to be a Fort Worth police officer.

"He was looking for something fulfilling," said his grandmother, Gladys Travis of Slippery Rock, Pa.

She said Cpl. Jafarkhani-Torshizi was a typical young man who loved his hometown Texas Rangers. As a child, he played in youth baseball leagues throughout Tarrant County.

After graduating from high school, he took a few community college classes and worked several jobs, but none was satisfying to him, Mrs. Travis said.

Then he decided that enlisting in the Marines and moving on to a career in law enforcement was the future he wanted.

Mrs. Travis said her grandson didn't like being in Iraq, but he knew it was part of his job.

"He didn't talk about the dangers, but he certainly understood them," she said.

So did Capt. Gordon, who was described by his mother as competitive and strong-willed, even as a child. He was always athletic - "if it was a sport, he played it," she said. He was on the baseball, football, basketball and soccer teams in high school and played rugby in college.

Linda Lott, a longtime friend of the Gordon family, said he was "a leader since he was 7 years old."

As a 13-year-old, he took a trip to Texas A&M University and fell in love with the Corps of Cadets there.

"I told him he had to make good grades and measure up," Mrs. Gordon said. "He said, 'I'm going!'"

When he arrived in College Station to attend A&M, Capt. Gordon was one of the students who cared for Reveille, the Corps' famed canine mascot. "He was an Aggie through and through," his mother said.

Capt. Gordon worked for a few months after graduation as a supervisor at a chicken-processing plant in College Station but quickly grew bored. He told his family he wanted more out of life. That led him back to his childhood dream of roaring through the air in the pilot's seat of a military aircraft.

On his way to officer candidate school, Capt. Gordon met a young Aggie named Kaci at a party in College Station. They started dating and later married in a large military wedding.

Capt. Gordon was already a Marine when the terrorist attacks of 9-11 occurred, the day of his 27th birthday. At that point, he decided he would never celebrate his birthday on Sept. 11 again.

"How could he celebrate on the day of that?" Mrs. Gordon said.

She said her son loved to fly through the Iraqi desert at night in a "sea of green" - the color everything appeared through his night-vision goggles. It was in the green glow that Capt. Gordon and his crew went down near Rutbah, about 220 miles west of Baghdad.

Mrs. Gordon said she hasn't been able to make funeral plans. Autopsies must be performed on all the crash victims before the bodies are released to the families.

That wait, she said, makes everything harder.

"I just want to bring my son home," Mrs. Gordon choking back a sob, "and bury him."

E-mail jmosier@dallasnews.com