IRAQ: The final roll call

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A brief and solemn memorial was held this weekend at Camp Fallouja for four Marines from the 1st Marine Logistics Group who were killed by a roadside bomb. They were part of a convoy through Karma when the powerful explosion ripped through their Humvee.

Killed were Lance Cpl. Casey L. Casanova, 22, of McComb, Miss.; Cpl. Miguel A. Guzman, 21, of Norwalk, Calif.; Lance Cpl. James F. Kimple, 21, of Carroll, Ohio; and Sgt. Glen E. Martinez, 31, of Boulder, Colo.

The four were the first fatalities suffered by the 1st Marine Logistics Group. Martinez’s wife, Melissa, is a Marine sergeant also assigned to Camp Fallouja. She accompanied his body to Colorado for burial.

At the memorial, Marines remembered the fallen: Casanova, who dreamed of becoming a nurse and was engaged to a Marine; Guzman, the 2004 graduate of John H. Glenn High School in Norwalk whose death has left the students there in shock; Kimple, who left high school to join the Marines and is survived by a wife and three children; and Martinez, the high school football quarterback and wrestler who enlisted after graduating from college.

A Marine first sergeant called the ritualized final roll call: Calling each name three times, with increasing volume, and hearing no response, the sergeant went on to the next.

A memorial service for the four is being organized at Camp Pendleton.

—Tony Perry in San Diego

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