Slain Marine loved God, his family and the Corps; Iraq - The Bend-area man, due home in September, was killed by a roadside bomb Sunday while on patrol
BEND -- A day before Lance Cpl. Randy Newman was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, he talked to his dad about what he wanted to do when he returned home on leave in late September.
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Thursday, August 24, 2006
MATTHEW PREUSCH
The Marine was hoping to take his sergeant elk hunting in Oregon and his 8-year-old brother, Ken, to Disneyland. "He was upbeat, encouraged," said his father, Jerry Newman.
But the younger Newman was killed Sunday by a bomb while patrolling with his unit in a light armored vehicle in Iraq's northern Al Anbar province.
"We are brokenhearted," Jerry Newman said Wednesday.
Holding back tears, he and his wife, Ramona Newman, stood with friends in front of their home amid the junipers and rabbit brush east of Bend as U.S. and Marine Corps flags hung at half staff behind them.
Randy Newman, 21, was committed to his family, God and his fellow Marines, they said.
"I realize when people die we only remember the good things," Jerry Newman said. "But I don't remember a week that went by that he didn't honor me."
Newman was a member of the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion of the 1st Marines Division based in Twentynine Palms, Calif.
He joined the Marines a year after graduating in 2003 from Mountain View High School, only waiting that long at his father's request. "He felt he needed to do something," his father said. "His friends were going off to college."
Newman was injured twice before by roadside bombs since deploying to Iraq in March, his family said. Sunday's attack also killed Cpl. Adam A. Galvez of Salt Lake City.
"It doesn't surprise me that he was in a very precarious place and doing it very willingly," said Les Combs, his high school wrestling coach.
Newman was passionate about physical fitness, first as a high school wrestler and then as a Marine, his father said.
After a long day's labor in Iraq, when other Marines were looking to rest, Newman would do sit-ups or push-ups, his father said. He even did squats with his vehicle's driver loaded on his shoulders.
He hoped to become a personal trainer after his time with the Marines concluded, his father said. He even sent his dad a weight-loss book from Iraq "and he told me to read it cover to cover because he didn't want to lose his dad," Jerry Newman said. "That was Randy."
The family thanked the community for its outpouring of goodwill. "We've had more support than is possibly imaginable," said Jerry Newman.
In their last conservation, Ramona Newman said she asked her son, a born-again Christian, if he was praying. He told her: "Mom, God and I are so tight right now," she recalled.
A public service for Newman is scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Deschutes County Fair and Expo Center in Redmond.
"Remember my son as a great and valued warrior," Ramona Newman said.
Matthew Preusch: 541-382-2006; preusch@bendbroadband.com