In Memoriam

Four Marines of Hawaii units, including a Kaneohe Marine already awarded a Purple Heart, were killed in the past week in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Pentagon said yesterday Marine Lance Cpl. Steven A. Valdez, 20, was killed Monday when insurgents attacked his forward operating base Camp Blessing near Asadabad with mortar, rocket-propelled grenade and small-arms fire. He had been awarded a Purple Heart for combat wounds suffered since he was sent to Afghanistan in June.

Valdez, of McRea, Ark., graduated from Beebe High School in 2004 and joined the Marine Corps in June 2004 and reported to 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, stationed at Kaneohe Bay, in November. He deployed to Afghanistan in June as a machine gunner with Echo Company's weapons platoon.

Wednesday was a somber day around campus. Lance Cpl. Valdez is described as an amazing young man who loved his country. Family members gather at a home in Denmark to remember the life of 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Steven Valdez.

(Sgt. Glenn Skaggs, victim’s brother) "We have brotherly time… we fight argue... To the day I die... sibling love."

Sgt. Glenn Skaggs is Valdez's brother, who is home on leave from Iraq. He describes his brother as competitive, but as living his dream of being a marine.

(Skaggs) "When he graduated and found out I was a marine, that was his next dream. He was going to the Middle East to get him some. That's the way he saw it."

Sgt. Skaggs says defending the United States is exactly what his brother would have wanted him to do.

(Skaggs) "My brother was over there for something he believed in and I want to help finish it."

Valdez was killed by mortar fire in Afghanistan while serving in Operation Enduring Freedom.

Valdez is survived by his mother and father.

Glenn Skaggs explains a letter the Marines sent to his family earlier this year.

He says, “It means he was definitely doing more than he had to do. He was going above and beyond what the Marines were asking of them."

Full of good news, it told the family of Steven Valdez’s promotion to Lance Corporal. Glenn is a Marine himself, currently on leave from serving in Iraq. He says his energetic, fun loving younger brother was following in his footsteps.

Glenn says, “Besides the fact you are blood brothers and everything, it just, you have that one more thing both y'all have in common. You can understand each other. You know what your younger brother is going through on a daily basis now because I've gone though it."

Their grandfather, Billy Skaggs, is a Marine as well. He's now retired, but did everything he could to help his grandson. Besides sending care packages of Blow Pops and chocolate pudding, he also sent phone cards.

Billy says, “I sent him phone cards so he could call me once a week. That was the deal I made with him."

Just last week he talked to his grandson. Billy recalls, “He said, 'Grandpa, this place is hell over here and I wish I could come home.'"

It makes it that much harder knowing Valdez will come home in a flag-draped coffin.

Tearfully Billy says, “Very proud of him. In my book he's a true hero. It's like the old saying--I'd like to have him back--I believe I'd rather have a live coward than a dead hero. I think them boys over there are dying for nothing. This war means nothing to us. They need to pull every one of our troops out of there."

But Glenn knows that's not a reality and he could be sent back to Iraq.

He says, “I'm not concerned so much about myself, I'm more concerned about my family. If something would happen to me, how would they take it? They've already lost one, how would they feel if something happened to me? That's my biggest worry.”

The family says they don't know when funeral services will be for Valdez. They say he will be laid to rest where he wanted, in Arlington National Cemetery.