LCpl. Allan Klein

(reprinted from the Detroit Free Press, January 28, 2005)

Marine from Macomb County killed in Iraq helicopter crash

January 28, 2005, 10:09 AM

CLINTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- A 34-year-old Marine from Macomb County who joined the military in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks is being remembered as a dedicated serviceman.

Lance Cpl. Allan Klein, of Clinton Township, north of Detroit, was one of 31 U.S military personnel killed in the crash of a helicopter on Wednesday during a sandstorm in Iraq near the border with Jordan.

Manfred Klein, of Monroe County's Frenchtown Township, said his son held several jobs, then decided to join the military after the attacks.

"I'm sure that had an impetus to it," Manfred Klein, who served in the Navy for four years, told The Monroe Evening News. "He felt a calling."

He said Allan Klein always had an interest in the military. And he said he supported his son's decision to join the Marines, even though he is an ex-sailor, because he was always impressed with them.

"He was an excellent Marine," he said. "And he certainly was a proud one."

As of Thursday, at least 1,418 members of the U.S. military had died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. Those killed included 40 service members from Michigan or with known Michigan ties.

The Department of Defense's announcement of Klein's death came Thursday night, hours after family and friends welcomed home members of another unit, members of the Michigan National Guard who had been serving in Iraq. The 1440th Engineer Detachment-Firefighters are based at Camp Grayling.

Forty-eight members of the unit were sent to Fort McCoy, Wis., in 2003 before deployment to Iraq.

Allan Klein was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force from Marine Corps Base Hawaii, the Pentagon said. His father said he graduated from high school in Roseville in 1988 and attended Michigan Technological University in Houghton for three years.

Survivors include his mother, Rae Oldaugh of Roseville; stepmother, Patricia Klein; a brother, Kurt, who lives in Spain; a stepbrother, Christopher Miletich, of Alaska; and a stepsister, Stephanie Lindsay, of Monroe.

Wednesday's crash killed 30 Marines and a Navy medic.

The CH-53E Super Stallion went down in western Iraq while transporting troops for security operations in preparation of Sunday's elections.

The crash was the single deadliest event for the American military in Iraq since the United States invaded that country in March 2003, and it was the largest number of Marines to die in a single event since the terrorist bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, in October 1983.

Before this week, 15 Marines from the same 900-member unit had been killed since the March 2003 start of the war in Iraq. Those included eight Marines who were killed Oct. 30 when a car bomb exploded near their patrol outside of Fallujah.

Officials said a memorial service in Iraq was scheduled for Wednesday, while plans to honor the Marines in Hawaii were in the works.

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