Thursday, 4:30 PM
Two more from Massachusetts among casualties of war
By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff
Relatives remembered Army Specialist Kyle A. Little of West Boylston as a wayward teen who had found his calling in the military. A devout Red Sox fan who had the team’s name tattooed on his arm, he had married his longtime girlfriend, Tiffany, who is expecting their first child in November.
Before Marine Lance Corporal Walter O’Haire was sent to Iraq, he would drive to Rockland from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina every weekend in a high-mileage Honda Civic to be with his family, said his mother, Maureen. He would have turned 21 on Tuesday.
"Everybody didn’t want him to go, but he was determined to go" to Iraq, she said. "He was a stubborn child, but you gotta love him."
Little and O’Haire, both 20, died in separate attacks this week in Iraq, bringing to 55 the number of military personnel from Massachusetts who have been killed since the war began in March 2003.
Little was killed Tuesday by an explosive device while patrolling near a vehicle in Iraq, where he was on his second tour of duty, his family said. O’Haire died in a firefight with insurgents in Iraq’s volatile Anbar province.
Earlier this week, Navy Petty Officer Andrew R. Bibbo, 22, of Clinton, died along with four other crew members when his helicopter struck a transmission line during a nighttime training exercise in the Nevada desert.
