In Memoriam

Kansas loses an American 'hero'

LIBERAL - Lance Cpl. Jose Marin-Dominguez left Kansas to serve his country, and the U.S. Marine, killed a week ago in Iraq, received accolades Sunday back on his home turf for making the ultimate sacrifice.

"Jose Marin died, died like a hero," said Jorge Gutierrez, pastor of the Maranatha Church of Christ here, which Marin-Dominguez attended. "We are standing before a hero. That's the truth."

The exclamation, made at Marin-Dominguez's funeral ceremony, generated thunderous applause among the 400 or so friends, family and others in attendance. Outside on North Pershing Avenue, many more, including hundreds of members of the pro-military Patriot Guard Riders motorcycle group, waved U.S. flags and lined a stretch of the roadway to pay homage.

"This is honoring a fallen soldier," said Joe Enterkin, a tattooed former U.S. Army soldier who was on hand. "He's just one of our children who gave his life for our country."

Protestors from Topeka's Westboro Baptist Church, which is led by the Rev. Fred Phelps, said they would picket the funeral, but no one appeared. Phelps think God, angry at the United States because homosexuality is tolerated here, is behind the U.S. deaths in Iraq. Phelps and his followers have protested at funerals in Hutchinson and elsewhere to call attention to the message.

Marin-Dominguez, 22, was deployed to Iraq in March and died on May 14 when his vehicle, part of a military convoy in the restive western province of Al Anbar, hit a roadside bomb. The death saddened many here, and friends and relatives on Sunday remembered the man, a 2003 Liberal High School graduate, as a jokester who enjoyed cars and wanted to become an auto mechanic.

"He was very cheerful, very happy," said Vanessa Dominguez, 16, his cousin. "Just really cool, he was awesome."

She said he generated laughs with his impersonation of Stitch from the Disney flick "Lilo and Stitch" and that, little by little, he was whipping his Honda Civic into shape.

Alex Casas, a friend, remembered how Marin-Dominguez liked cruising the streets of Liberal. In fact, he said some here already were decorating their cars with the logo of the car club he planned to start, called Paradise.

"He was going to (start) it when he came back," Casas said. "Everybody was tagging their cars and everything."

Perhaps more significantly, Gutierrez recalled a young man who was deeply moved by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Though born in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Marin-Dominguez, a naturalized U.S citizen, grew up in Liberal and felt passionately about the United States.

"He felt strongly about what happened to the Twin Towers," Gutierrez said. "He felt his own home was being attacked."

Sunday's funeral ceremony, conducted in English and Spanish, took on a raucous air at times. A band played lively music - "If he were here, he would ask us not to be sad," Gutierrez explained - while members of the evangelical church clapped, cried, raised their arms in exaltation and shouted out "amen" and "hallelujah."

The ceremony at Restlawn Cemetery, north of Liberal, was more subdued. Friends and family released colored balloons into the air while U.S. Marine Col. Greg Boyle presented Marin-Dominguez's family with the Purple Heart the Marine earned posthumously. Boyle, regimental commander at the Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, base that Marin-Dominguez served out of, traveled here for Sunday's ceremonies.

"Jose is a great young man, he's a great Marine," Boyle said. "He's a great American and, as the pastor said, he's a great American hero."