Conn. Marine among the dead
Marine Corps Sergeant David J. Coullard of Glastonbury, Conn., was among the six Marines killed Monday during a small-arms battle in Iraq, according to family members. He is the first Iraq casualty from the suburban Hartford town and is believed to be the 18th from the state.
Coullard, 32, grew up in Glastonbury and graduated from Glastonbury High School in 1992. He was a 10-year reservist with the Corps, serving as a scout sniper in the 3d Battalion, 25th Marines, based in Ohio.
He was serving his second tour in Iraq, having recently returned to service after being shot in the hip and shoulder, injuries for which he was awarded a Purple Heart, his mother, Anita Dziedzic, said.
''If he came home I knew he was going to go back," Dziedzic said. ''But I just wasn't prepared. I said very silly things like, 'I don't want you to go,' just to throw out a thing to see how he felt about things. And he would always respond, 'Mom!' "
Coullard and five others from the Ohio battalion died northwest of Baghdad while on sniper duty on Monday. Fourteen other Marines from the same base were killed yesterday when their vehicle was hit by a roadside explosive in what officials called the deadliest roadside bomb attack against US troops since the war began.
The US command said Coullard and the five other Marines were ''engaged by terrorists and killed by small-arms fire" in Haditha, which US and Iraqi officials have identified as a major route for insurgents entering Iraq.
Governor M. Jodi Rell, who ordered state flags to be lowered to half-staff until sundown after Coullard is buried, extended her condolences to the Marine's family and friends.
The Marine Corps identified the other Marines killed Monday as Sergeant Nathaniel S. Rock of Toronto, Ohio; Corporal Jeffrey A. Boskovitch of North Royalton, Ohio; Lance Corporals Brian P. Montgomery, whose wife lives in Mentor, Ohio, and Daniel N. Deyarmin of Tallmadge, Ohio; and Roger D. Castleberry Jr., whose wife lives in Cedar Park, Texas.
Though Coullard's mother and stepfather no longer live in Glastonbury, the town hall's phones began ringing with calls from the media yesterday afternoon.
''This is our first," said finance director Ted Ellis. ''It's a disappointment to me personally where we have a situation in the world where people have to give their lives . . . but that's been the situation in this country for a long time."
From the time he graduated high school, Dziedzic said, her son had wanted to be a Marine. ''Besides his mother, the Marines were his love," his stepfather, Greg Dziedzic, said.
''Maybe it was the uniform," his mother said. ''It was something that he always wanted to do. He always wanted to accomplish something, to make people proud of him, maybe."
The last time she heard from her son, he'd sent her an e-mail picture of himself and his friend and spotter, Boskovitch, 25, an aspiring police officer who planned to set a wedding date with his girlfriend when he came home.
''Six hours later, they told me he was dead," Dziedzic said. ''I'm going to miss him so terribly."
''My son is a hero," she added. ''My son did what he felt was the right thing to do. He believed in it. In one of his e-mails to me, he thought that he was doing good. And then this happened."
