Marcelino Ronald Corniel, Army National Guard, Sergeant -- Rest In Peace

Marcelino Ronald Corniel, 23

Army National Guard, Sergeant
Based: Fullerton
1st Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment, 40th Infantry Division
Supporting: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Died: December 31, 2005
Baghdad (southern part), Iraq
Engaged
Gender: Male
Hometown: La Puente
High School: Bassett Senior High (La Puente)
Burial: Forest Lawn Memorial-Park, Covina Hills

On both tours of Iraq, he spared loved ones the details of the violence he witnessed in war. Once, he woke up his mother with a phone call at 2:30 a.m. He sounded distraught, and she still wonders why. He asked her to sing him a lullaby -- "Lu, Lu, Lu" -- that she had sung to him when he was a boy. She did.


At her son's coffin at a viewing Thursday, she sang it to him again. "I'm sure there were tears on the flag, but I didn't care," she said.

One consolation for Lopez is that her son fell in love with Calderon, a makeup artist from Bellflower. "He learned to love a woman, and to be loved back," Lopez said.

The day before he died, his mother recalled, Corniel told his fiancee in an e-mail: "24 more days until the happiest day of my life."

"Why him?" his mother asked, "when he was so needed -- not by his country, but by us."

Do read the whole LA Times article about Army National Guard Sergeant  Marcelino Ronald Corniel here and find more here, here and here.