COVERING WHIDBEY ISLAND’S NAVAL AIR STATION COMMUNITY
CROSSWIND Whidbey
VOLUME 1, NO. 9 | 27 M AY 2011
www.whidbeycrosswind.com
Flag honors first Whidbey Island Marine killed in Iraq
Maple Leaf Cemetery gets new U.S. flag By K ATHY REED
Whidbey Crosswind
There will be a new flag flying this Memorial Day atop the flag pole at Maple Leaf Cemetery in Oak Harbor. In a presentation May 18, post commander of the Oak Harbor American Legion, Lenord Little, presented cemetery personnel and its board of commissioners with a new flag to fly
SEE FLAG | PAGE 7
THIS EDITION This Honor and Remember Flag flies at the Oak Harbor home of Theresa St. Pierre. Her son, Lance Cpl. Kyle Brown, was killed in Iraq on Jan. 7, 2006. DENNIS CONNOLLY/WHIDBEY CROSSWIND
To honor and remember By DENNIS CONNOLLY
Whidbey Crosswind
On Jan. 7, 2006, Lance Cpl. Kyle W. Brown was walking on patrol with his fellow Marines in Fallujah, Iraq when he was shot by a sniper in the neck between his helmet and his body amour. He died nine minutes later, said his mother, Theresa St. Pierre. He was 22 and the first Whidbey Island solder to die in Iraq, she said. Now Theresa has an Honor and Remember Flag flying below the American Flag in her front yard. It speaks to people who pass her house about her son, Kyle, who really wanted to be in the Marine Corps and was willing to put his life on the line to do so. Kyle Brown was tall and “skinny as a rail” said Theresa, but worked out with weights and gained enough muscle — 20 to 30 pounds — to get in the Marine Corps, which he did shortly after gradu-
ating from high school. He loved it, said his mother. “From the time he was 11 or 12 he wanted to be a Marine,” she said. He completed boot camp in October, 2002. He trained in Korea Lance Cpl. Kyle and Japan and his first duty tour was the 2003 Brown invasion of Iraq. He also served in Afghanistan, Africa and the Philippines. “This was his third deployment in Iraq,” St. Pierre said. “He’d already done two deployments in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. He wanted to go back because his friends in the Marine Corps were over there.” His permanent duty station was Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Kyle William Brown didn’t suffer, his mother believes. His spinal cord was severed and whatever he went through in his last nine minutes he couldn’t feel. He wasn’t married and did not have a girlfriend. But he had a mother and she suffered. Kyle had gone to live with his father when he was 13 and didn’t come back, but the bonds with his mother were there since his birth. “He was my Marine,” she said. “I watched him come into this world and I watched him get buried.” She found out that Kyle had died by word of mouth. The Marine Corps sent word from Quantico, Va. to Camp Lejeune and by the time it got to Whidbey, St. Pierre had already found out. She dealt with it and still deals with it.
SEE MARINE | PAGE 6
Summer safety fair draws good crowd ............pg. 2 American Legion issues a call to veterans .............pg. 3 Old Fogies meet for more than breakfast .......pg. 5 Tired and Retired Civil Service Ladies meet ........ pg. 11
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