2 more Kaneohe Marines die in Iraq

The deaths this week make eight since the unit arrived in August

Two of the four Marines killed in Iraq this week were members of a Kaneohe-based unit that has lost eight since arriving in late August.

The Pentagon said yesterday the two Kaneohe Marines were Pvts. 1st Class Daniel B. Chaires, 20, of Tallahassee, Fla., and Donald S. Brown, 19, of Succassunna, N.J. The other two were from units stationed on the mainland.

The Kaneohe Marines died Wednesday in separate incidents, of wounds received while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province.

The Marine base at Kaneohe Bay said Chaires and Brown were riflemen assigned to 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment. Both enlisted in the Marine Corps in September 2005 and reported to Hawaii in March 2006, and were deployed to Iraq six months later. Their awards include the Purple Heart, the National Defense Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.

His family said that serving in the military was Brown's goal and that he joined the Marines last year.

"It was something that he really wanted to do to protect his country," his mother, Annette Brown, told the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger. "He told us he loved us and this is what he wanted to do."

His father said only one thing made the Marine flinch from the assignment. "He knew he was going to leave his fiancee behind, so there was a little reservation there," Philip Brown said.

This is the 2nd Battalion's second combat tour. It was deployed to Afghanistan in late 2004 and lost four of its members there.

The number of American troops killed in Iraq in October reached the highest monthly total in a year after four Marines and a sailor died of wounds suffered while fighting in the same Sunni insurgent stronghold on Wednesday.

The U.S. military said 96 U.S. troops have died so far in October, the highest monthly total since the same number were killed in October 2005. The highest monthly death toll before that came in January 2005, when 107 U.S. troops were killed.

As of yesterday at least 2,809 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians.