Jay Thomas Aubin
Profile
Age: 36
From: Waterville, Maine
Assigned to the Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz.
Incident: Marine Maj. Jay Thomas Aubin was killed in a CH-46E helicopter crash in Kuwait.
Died: March 20, 2003
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Marine Maj. Jay Thomas Aubin was so kind, so friendly that his Marine buddies nicknamed him “Sweet Pea.”
“He could make a 7-year-old girl feel like she was as important as President Bush,” said his mother, Nancy Chamberlain.
Aubin, 36, died March 21 in a helicopter crash in Kuwait, near the Iraqi border. He was stationed in Yuma, Ariz., and lived there with his wife, Rhonda, and their children, 10-year-old Alicia and Nathan, 7.
He grew up in Skowhegan, Maine, and joined the Marines after high school. He served four years before going to the University of Southern Maine, then re-enlisted after graduation.
“When he was 4 years old, we all went to the airport and he had sat on one of my airplanes like a grown man,” said his father, Tom Aubin, who operates a small airstrip in Texas.
“Sweat Pea” among first OIF casualties
By Hugo Kugiya
Associated Press
Maj. Jay Thomas Aubin was among the first casualties of the war. He was piloting a helicopter with three other Marines and eigh