From the Archives: 20 years ago 6 local Marines became the nation’s first fatalities in the war against Iraq

Twenty years ago, the United States launched an invasion of Iraq, beginning an eight-year conflict that resulted in the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. servicemembers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The invasion succeeded in ousting the regime of dictator Saddam Hussein.

On March 21, 2003, San Diego County-based Marines were among the nation’s first fatalities in the invasion of Iraq. In addition to the four men identified below, the first U.S. casualties included 1st Lt. Therrel Shane Childers, 30, and Lance Cpl. José Gutierrez, 28.

From The San Diego Union-Tribune, Saturday, March 22, 2003:

Word of first U.S. losses jolts Marine community

By Jeanette Steele, Staff Writer

Within 12 hours yesterday, six San Diego County-based Marines became the nation’s first fatalities in the war against Iraq, making real the greatest fears of local military families.

Two Marine infantrymen were killed in firefights with enemy troops in Iraq, and the others died in a helicopter accident yesterday (Iraq time) in northern Kuwait near the Iraqi border. All were attached to the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

The loss hit hard at the Marine base, which has sent the majority of its 45,000-person force to the Persian Gulf region.

“We’ve lost some of our family,” said Maj. Curtis Hill, base spokesman. “We honor their memory and are confident that the cause in which they fought is just, and the world is a safer place for their sacrifice, dedication and service.”

Killed were the helicopter’s pilots, Maj. Jay Thomas Aubin, 36, and Capt. Ryan Anthony Beaupre, 30; the crew chief, Staff Sgt. Kendall Damon Watersbey, 29; and the crew’s mechanic, Cpl. Brian Matthew Kennedy, 25.

The Pentagon didn’t release the names of the two other Marines yesterday.

Flying in the early morning darkness, the helicopter crew was transporting eight British Marines in a CH-46E Sea Knight. The Vietnam-era troop helicopter apparently crashed in the Kuwaiti desert just south of the Iraq border.

Enemy fire was not suspected, Pentagon officials said.

Also in the early morning, a 1st Marine Division infantryman was killed while leading his platoon in a fight to secure an oil pumping station in southern Iraq, defense officials said.

The Marine’s unit had engaged a platoon of Iraqi infantry. The wounded Marine was taken by helicopter to a surgical center in Kuwait but could not be saved, officials said.

In the afternoon, another Marine was killed in action against enemy forces near the southern Iraqi port town of Umm Qasr, Pentagon officials said.

Camp Pendleton Marines were among the first troops to charge into southern

Iraq as the ground war began yesterday in the pre-dawn hours Iraq time, according to reports.

Marine engineers punched through sand berms marking the Iraqi border and cleared minefields, allowing the 1st Marine Division to race through.

By yesterday afternoon Pacific time, the Marines had seized the town of Safwan in southern Iraq and Umm Qasr.

Aubin, an 18-year Marine veteran, was an instructor with Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1 in Yuma, Ariz., before deploying for war with the Camp Pendleton force.

He is survived by his wife, Rhonda, and children Alicia, 10, and Nathan, 7. His immediate family, reached at home in Yuma, declined to comment.

Aubin’s hometown was Waterville, Maine, where he was the first of 30 grandchildren in a family that has been in that state for generations, family members said.

“He was a very determined little boy,” said his aunt, Kim Willette of Winslow, Maine. “He had big dreams. He always wanted to fly planes and knew he was going to, just like his dad (a private pilot). Jay would fall asleep in the back of the Cessna.”

There’s no way to soften the blow, his aunt said.

“He prepared us for this all the time,” she said. “But that doesn’t make it any easier.”

Except for Aubin, all were members of Camp Pendleton’s Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268, the “Red Dragons.”

Watersbey, who grew up in Baltimore, joined the Marines in 1992, not long after high school. He is married and has a 10-year-old son. Little could be learned about him yesterday.

Beaupre, who was single, abandoned an accounting career to join the Marines in 1996, a family friend said.

“He always wanted to fly, but his parents wanted him to get a college degree first,” said Bob Themer, the family’s spokesman.

Beaupre, who was from St. Anne, Ill., and graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University, worked in accounting for a year.

“Then he came home and told them he could do more as a Marine,” Themer said.

Beaupre lived in an Encinitas apartment overlooking the sea, where he often surfed, said neighbor Ron Holdsworth. He remembers a comment the Marine made after military helicopters flew by their building one day.

“At the time, we were in Afghanistan fighting, and he said, `The thing about being a Marine is you know when your brother Marines are fighting, you can’t sit still,’” Holdsworth said. “ `You want to go help them.’ ”

Kennedy, also unmarried, was born and raised in Illinois, his stepfather, John Derbyshire, said yesterday. Kennedy grew up in Glenview, a suburb of Chicago, and graduated from Glenbrook South High School in 1995.

He played on the football team through high school and played lacrosse in his junior and senior years. He was a member of Future Teachers of America and the National Honor Society.

Kennedy, who joined the Marines in 1999, had been stationed at Camp Pendleton for three years. His father, Mark Kennedy, lives in Houston and his mother, Melissa Derbyshire, lives in Port Clyde, Maine.

Staff writers Kristen Green and Michael Burge and Copley News Service reporter Joe Cantlupe contributed to this report.