Randal Kent Rosacker, Marines, Corporal -- Rest In Peace

Randal Kent Rosacker, 21

Marines, Corporal
Based: Camp Lejeune, N.C.
1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment,
II Marine Expeditionary Brigade
Supporting: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Died: March 23, 2003
Nasiriya, Iraq
Married
Gender: Male
Hometown: San Diego
High School: Serra High (San Diego)
Burial: Colorado State Veterans Center, Homelake, Colo

He was a rough-and-tumble athlete who loved the outdoors and playing war games with his cousins. From a young age, Randal Kent Rosacker knew he wanted to follow his father into the military.


So when the elder Rosacker saw the Marines approaching his home in Bremerton, Wash., he knew what the news would be.


"I had a good idea where my son was at," Rod Rosacker, command master chief on the U.S. submarine Alabama, said Tuesday. "When the Marines walked up to the front door, that pretty much answered it for me."

The younger Rosacker, who grew up in San Diego, knew at age 10 that he wanted to join the military. The father tried to discourage his son from enlisting immediately after high school, urging him to pursue his athletic talents in college instead.

"I tried talking him out of it, but he was too anxious. He didn't want to wait," said Rosacker, who has been in the Navy for 18 years and lives with his wife, Debra.

...

Toni Rosacker said Tuesday that she and her sister Samantha, 21, were sad, but also proud of their brother. She said that the family had received several letters from Randal, some written on food packaging. "In his last letter, he just told us how much he loved us," she said.

The young Marine's grandmother, Patricia Rosacker, said her only grandson always wanted to be like his father. "Because his dad was in the military, he pretty much always knew that's what he wanted to do," Rosacker said from her home in Alamosa, Colo.

Be sure to read the entire LA Times article about Marine Corporal Randal Kent Rosacker which begins with the story of Jorge Alonso Gonzalez. Find more at Fallen Heroes and Military Times and at the Durango Herald. Visit Corporal Randal Kent Rosacker's Guest Book.

Brooke Rosacker, widow of Marine Cpl. Randal Kent Rosacker, center, mourns with the the fallen soldier’s sisters, Samantha, left, and Antoinette, on Friday at the First United Methodist Church in Alamosa.