Michael E Bitz
Profile
Age: 31
From: Ventura, Calif.
Assigned to 2nd Assault Amphibious Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Incident: Marine Sgt. Michael E. Bitz was killed in action near Nasiriyah, Iraq.
Died: March 23, 2003
Sgt. Michael E. Bitz, 31, died without ever having seen his youngest children, twins born one month ago after he was dispatched to the Persian Gulf.
Bitz was an adventurer who found his life’s path when he joined the Marines in 1995, his mother, Donna Bellman said. And according to his mother-in-law, reached at Bitz’s North Carolina home, the father of four was “a damn good dad.”
In addition to the twins, Bitz also had two sons, Christian, 7, and Joshua, 2.
Bitz and his wife, Janina, lived in Jacksonville, N.C., but he grew up in Ventura, Calif., and graduated from Hueneme High School in Oxnard in 1990.
He wasn’t involved in any clubs or teams but earned good grades, said Joel Lovstedt, Hueneme’s assistant principal. He was a “regular guy, and it looks like he was a good student,” he said.
After graduation, Bitz drifted from job to job, got married, had his son Christian and later divorced. His mother says she told him to consider the military in order to focus