Matthew R. Smith
Profile
Age: 24
From: West Valley, Utah
Assigned to 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Base Hawaii
Incident: Marine Cpl. Matthew R. Smith was killed Jan. 26 when the CH-53E helicopter in which he was riding crashed near Rutbah, Iraq. Twenty-nine Marines and one sailor also were
Died: January 26, 2005
Utah Marine killed in chopper crash in Iraq
By Leon D’souza
Associated Press
WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah — Had Cpl. Matthew Smith made it back to base, he would have been greeted by a flood of e-mails from his anxious mother.
But the Utah man never had a chance to read those messages, estimated at about 600 by his mother, Colleen Parkin.
Smith, 24, who was assisting U.S. forces in securing Fallujah, Iraq, for this weekend’s elections was one of 31 service members killed in a helicopter crash in a desert storm. He had been deployed in Iraq since October 2004.
Family members huddled at their suburban Salt Lake City home on Thursday confirmed that their son had been killed when a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter packed with Marines crashed on Wednesday.
“He died a hero and brave,” said Parkin, choking back tears.
The crash was the single worst incident, in terms of U.S. casualties, since the beginning of the Iraq...