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In Memoriam |
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In Memoriam |
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SSgt. Lori Anne Privette, USMC
(reprinted from The Charlotte NC Observer, January 25, 2004)
ZEBULON, N.C. - A Marine staff sergeant who came home from Iraq this fall was one of four Marines killed when their UH-1N Huey helicopter crashed at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Staff Sgt. Lori Anne Privette, 27, of Zebulon was a crew chief aboard the aircraft that crashed late Thursday during a training flight at the sprawling Marine base north of San Diego, the military said.
The cause of the crash was under investigation. Results were not expected for several months, a base spokesman said.
Privette joined the Marine Corps in August 1994 and returned in September from serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
"We were so scared for her when she was out there, and then she got back, and the accident happened here," her father, Bobby Privette, told The News & Observer of Raleigh.
The diminutive redhead visited her parents in her hometown of Zebulon, a small town just east of Raleigh, in October and cut down yellow ribbons they had tied to trees and bushes outside their home.
"She was something special," Bobby Privette said Saturday. "She was a solid United States Marine, and I was so proud. I was so proud to see her in her uniform."
Privette initially joined the Navy after graduating Smithfield-Selma High School in 1994, then switched to the Marine Corps. Her mother, Dawn Griffin Privette, was an Army veteran and Privette thought military service would give her life direction, her parents said.
"She loved to fly, and she loved the teaching part of her job," her father said. "She talked a lot about taking care of the younger guys as they were coming in."
Privette will be buried in a military funeral in San Diego next to her husband, R.J. Petty, a Marine who died of cancer days after they were married. She is also survived by three siblings.
The other three victims were identified as a pilot, Capt. Adam E. Miller, 29, of Midlothian, Ill.; 1st Lt. Michael S. Lawlor, 26, a helicopter pilot from Timonium, Md.; and Cpl. Joshua D. Harris, 21, a helicopter crew chief from Holiday, Fla.
The four Marines were part of a detachment from Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 169, attached to the Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 166, 11th Marin e Expeditionary Unit, I Marine Expeditionary Force.