Based: Camp Lejeune, N.C.
1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, II Marine Expeditionary Brigade
Supporting: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Died: March 23, 2003
Nasiriya, Iraq
Single
Gender: Male
Hometown: Costa Mesa
High School: Newport Harbor High (Newport Beach)
Foreign Country of Birth: Mexico
Burial: Riverside National Cemetery, Riverside
I went to High School with Jose. We joined the Marines together and were in the same platoon in boot camp.
I remember 2 months into boot camp, he walked over to me one evening during the 20 minutes of liberty time we were given and he said, "How are you doing Harry?" I hadn't heard my first name said to me in over two months and it stunned me. He brought me back down to Earth and reminded me of the world that existed outside of that rather unpleasant, at the time, situation we were both in.
He was an incredible friend and a truly dedicated Marine.— Harry Agdayan
November 12, 2010 at 7:58 p.m.
Three men in uniform knocked on Simona Garibay's door in Costa Mesa early Monday, walking past U.S. and Mexican flags proudly planted in her front lawn.
At first she was mystified that these strangers were asking for her by name.
"I didn't know who they were," she said, too upset to say much more. "Then they told me the horrible news."
Her 21-year-old son, Marine Cpl. Jose Angel Garibay, had been killed in combat in Iraq, the Marines told family members. Late Monday, the Department of Defense confirmed that Garibay was one of seven Marines killed in action Sunday near Nasiriyah, Iraq, in some of the heaviest fighting of the war to date.
Also killed were Cpl. Jorge A. Gonzalez, 20, of Los Angeles
Sgt. Michael E. Bitz, 31, of Ventura
Lance Cpl. David K. Fribley, 26, of Lee, Fla.
Staff Sgt. Phillip A. Jordan, 42, of Brazoria, Texas
2nd Lt. Frederick E. Pokorney Jr., 31, of Nye, Nev.
Lance Cpl. Thomas J. Slocum, 22, of Adams, Colo.
Garibay, a stocky former football player from Newport Harbor High School, joined the Marines three years ago, right after graduation, handling missiles and mortars for a weapons platoon. He was shipped out to the Middle East three months ago.
The Marine, whose family moved to the United States from Jalisco, Mexico, when he was a baby, is the first Orange County serviceman to be killed in combat.
He wrote to this mother often and sent money home almost every month, family members said. In his last letter, which arrived from Kuwait on March 11, he asked for a package of his favorite Mexican candies and a CD of popular ranchera singer Vicente Fernandez.
Do read the entire LA Times article about Marine Corporal Jose Angel Garibay here,
find more at Wall Dads,
Fallen Heroes and the Orange County Register.
find more at Wall Dads,
Fallen Heroes and the Orange County Register.
Also remembered here today is Marine Corporal Randal Kent Rosacker.
We are freedom's answer to fear. We do not bargain with terror. We stalk it, corner it, take aim and kill it.
— Jose Angel Garibay, in final letter to his girlfriend
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