Aaron Boyles, Marines, Lance Corporal -- Rest In Peace

Aaron Boyles, 24

Marines, Lance Corporal
Based: Twentynine Palms, Calif.
Headquarters & Service Company, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force
Supporting: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Died: September 24, 2004
Anbar province, Iraq
Married, 2 children
Gender: Male
Hometown: Alameda
High School: Newark Memorial High (Newark)
Burial: Golden Gate National Cemetery, San Bruno, Calif.

I love you dad. Thank you for keeping my country safe... I will always miss you.

— Derik Flora-Boyles

August 26, 2011 at 10:27 p.m.

Boyles, who would have turned 25 this week, had been looking forward to seeing his wife and new child on a two-week leave beginning Oct. 19.

Military officials, however, suddenly canceled the leave, his wife said. "All he said was they had a special mission and couldn't come home this time," she said.

Boyles couldn't stop talking in phone calls and wrote letters home about the impending birth of his son, whom the couple had already named Brandon.


"He was excited about it all the time," his wife said. "He wanted to teach him to play football and basketball and to play catch. He wanted to be a good dad."
"When he joined the Marine Corps, he found his place," his sister said. "It totally changed him. He became a man, with bigger responsibilities than he had ever had."

Boyles and his wife were married July 4, 2003. "He chose that day because it's patriotic," she said. "He always put the flag out and talked about how he loved this country."

In addition to his wife and sister, Boyles is survived by his mother, Wanda Kealaiki, and stepfather, Alex Gallardo, of Newark, Calif.; another sister, Angel Boyles; two brothers, Ademir Gallardo and Andrew Gallardo; and a 5-year-old son, Derrick Boyles, from another relationship.

Read the whole LA Times article about Lance Corporal Aaron Boyles here with more here; find memories and messages here and here.

From left, Prabha Boyles, wife of Marine Lance Cpl. Aaron Robert Boyles, Wanda Keilaki, Boyles' mother, wearing purple lei, and Alex Gallardo, stepfather, say their last goodbyes at the gravesite of Boyles Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2004, during funeral services at Golden Gate National Cemeterey in San Bruno, Calif. Prabha Boyles is pregnant expecting the couples' first child.

(AP Photo/Ben Margot)

The above picture of the family of Lance Corporal Aaron Boyles was found here.