Memorial honors eight Marines killed in Iraq

<p>Lance Cpl. Jeremy Bow called his girlfriend from Iraq on Oct. 29 to tell her how much he cared for her, promising to call her "a lot." But he never called again.</p><p>"He called and the next day he died," Whitney Wilson said of her boyfriend of seven months. "He was an awesome guy. I don't know how to describe him, he was perfect."</p><p>Bow, 20, of Lemoore, Calif., was killed Oct. 30 along with seven other Marines, two of them from Georgia, by a suicide car bomb in Iraq. It was the deadliest attack against the American military in nearly six months.</p><p>The eight Marines were honored Monday at a memorial service at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, just hours before some 1,000 Marines from the oceanside base in Kaneohe began leaving for Afghanistan.</p><p>Seven of the slain Marines were from the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment at Kaneohe. They arrived in Iraq with their unit last month. They were killed when a car bomb went off next to a truck outside Fallujah in the Anbar province of Iraq.</p><p>"We should not mourn their death. We should celebrate their lives," Col. Jeffrey Patterson, commanding officer of the 3rd Marine Regiment. "We should celebrate the fact that we live in such a country and society that can produce men of this caliber."</p><p>It was standing-room only with hundreds of Marines and loved ones crowded into an auditorium.</p><p>On stage, photographs of the Marines and purple-and-white orchid lei rested beside the boots, M-16 rifles and tan helmets.</p><p>"There's a lot of people out there that complain about today's younger generation. They say they're weak, spoiled, unmotivated. Well, they never met the Marines we're remembering here today," Patterson said.</p><p>The emotional service Monday included songs, prayers, a wreath presentation and a two-bell ceremony in which the names of the Marines were read one by one.</p><p>The others killed by the car bomb attack were Lance Cpl. John T. Byrd II, 23, of Fairview, W.Va.; Lance Cpl. Travis A. Fox, 25, of Cowpens, S.C.; Cpl. Christopher J. Lapka, 22, of Peoria, Ariz.; Pfc. John Lukac, 19, of Las Vegas; Pfc. Andrew G. Riedel of Northglenn, Colo.; and Lance Cpl. Michael P. Scarborough, 28, of Washington, Ga.</p><p>Also killed in the explosion and honored Monday was Sgt. Kelley L. Courtney, 28, of Macon, Ga., who was assigned to the III Marine Expeditionary Force's 3rd Intelligence in Okinawa, Japan.</p>

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