Sgt. Duane Rios, U.S.M.C (KIA)

Indiana Marine killed in Iraq
Squad leader shot Saturday in firefight near Baghdad.

By Jason Thomas

A northwest Indiana native who married his high school sweetheart is the fourth Hoosier to die in the war with Iraq.

Sgt. Duane Rios, 25, from Griffith, an engineer with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, was shot Saturday in a firefight on the eastern edge of Baghdad.

Rios, a 1996 Griffith High School graduate, was a squad leader who put others before himself, said his wife, Erica, who married her classmate two years after graduation.

"He was a great guy. He was like a friend. He was a wonderful husband," she said from their San Clemente, Calif., home, near Camp Pendleton, where Rios was stationed. "It sounds so clicheé, but you couldn't ask for anything better in a friend and a husband.

"He made sure everyone was taken care of before himself. His friends. His Marines. Me, of course."

Rios is the third soldier -- and the second from northwest Indiana -- to be killed in action. Army Spc. Greg Sanders, 19, from Hobart, Ind., was killed March 24; Marine Cpl. Lance Fribley, 26, from Warsaw, was killed a day earlier. Army National Guard Spc. William A. Jeffries, 39, from Evansville, died March 31 in Spain after falling ill in Kuwait.

Erica last spoke to her husband the day after Valentine's Day -- her birthday.

"He told me he loved me, that he wanted to come home and he wanted to take a shower," she said.

Kay Orzechowicz, 40, a teacher at Griffith High in Lake County, remembered Rios' gentle smile.

"He was one of those type of kids where everyone knew him," she said. "There are a few who blend in, who don't stand out. But he stood out from the crowd. Mainly he was a respectful kid.

"He was charismatic. He never walked by anyone without saying hello. It was nice to see him in the hall."

She said the war in Iraq has hit home, following the death of Sanders and now Rios.

"I think it was more shock and disbelief," Orzechowicz said of the mood at the high school. "I thought about all of the kids from Griffith in the Armed Forces. It's getting close to home here."

A support group of family and friends have given Erica comfort.

"I have a lot of family here, a lot of friends, people that loved him," she said. "I'm kind of being held up by everybody. It just doesn't seem real."

What is real are the memories of her husband, whose duties as an engineer included road and bridge construction, clearing minefields and using explosives.

"One friend said to me recently, 'If anyone knows Duane, they know he'd be the last one standing, asking for a taxi ride home,' " Erica said. "That's the kind of guy he was. I'm so proud of him."