Roberto Abad
Profile
Age: 22
From: Los Angeles, Calif.
Assigned to Battalion Landing Team 1/4 (1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment), 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Incident: Marine Cpl. Roberto Abad was killed Aug. 6 by enemy action in Najaf province, Iraq.
Died: August 06, 2004
When Roberto Abad learned he would be deployed to Iraq for a second time, he decided it was time to father a child. "He wanted to have a child in case he never came back," said his father, Roberto Abad. "We're going to be able to have a memory of him now." Abad, 22, of Bell Gardens, Calif., died in combat Aug. 6 in Iraq's Najaf province. He was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif. Although proud of his service, Abad also looked ahead to life after the military and planned to become a firefighter, attend college and marry his girlfriend, his family said. The oldest of seven children, he joined the Marines just after high school and participated in the U.S. invasion of Iraq last year. He was deployed again earlier this year. "I looked up to...