DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM A "Welcome Home & Reunion" ceremony was held yesterday at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe for the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines who fought in Iraq. After the emotional ceremony, Nancy Byrd, whose son Lance Cpl. John Thomas Byrd II was killed in the war, visited with commanding officer Col. Jeffrey Patterson.

Families join with
bonds of brothers

A ceremony marks the tearful
and joyful return of Marines

A welcome-home ceremony and reunion at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe yesterday was a chance for bittersweet bonds to form between families of Kaneohe Marines killed in Iraq and the comrades who fought alongside them.

Gregory Medina stood among a circle of Marines and remembered his son, Lance Cpl. Brian A. Medina, 20, of Woodbridge, Va., who was killed Nov. 12 in Fallujah. He invited anyone who served with his son to come visit his family in northern Virginia.

"You are my family. You are my sons now, like it or not," Medina told the Marines.

"Meeting these guys is something I've been waiting for a long time," Medina said. "All these guys here in his squad are all brothers."

Yesterday's ceremony was partly a celebration for the recent return of Kaneohe-based 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines after their 10-month deployment and partly a memorial service for the 51 men who did not return home.

There were chuckles and tears yesterday in dozens of impromptu conversations in the shade of monkeypod trees that edge Dewey Field.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM A seating area for the families of fallen heroes included, from right, David, Kimberly and William Rairdan, the parents and brother of the late Lance Cpl. Rhonald Dane Rairdan; Sabrina and Greg Medina, parents of the late Lance Cpl. Brian Medina; and Nancy Byrd.

Lance Cpl. Rhonald Dane Rairdan's mother shared photos of her son's squad when it first arrived in Iraq. Rairdan, 20, of Bexar, Texas, was killed Jan. 26 in the crash of a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter.

While some of the fallen died in battle or in ambush attacks, others were lost in ways that seemed preventable.

Roseanne Love's son Dennis Mitchell II died July 22 after collapsing from heat exhaustion on a 6-mile training march, she said.

"We knew being here would bring everything back up," said her husband, Randy Love, Mitchell's stepfather since he was 4.

Despite their lingering questions, the Loves were grateful to have some closure at yesterday's event, they said.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM During yesterday's ceremony at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe, Greg and Sabrina Medina shed tears for their son, Lance Cpl. Brian Medina, who was among the Kaneohe Marines killed in the Iraq war.

"We had a closed casket, so this helps some," Byrd said. With him yesterday were his wife, Nancy, daughter-in-law Jessica Marie and grandson Elijah Cade, who was born Jan. 14, after John Byrd II's death.

A formal ceremony included comments from Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona and commanding officers, and a 21-gun salute. Six companies of fatigue-clad Marines and Navy corpsmen stood at parade rest in the afternoon sun yesterday as their commanding officers announced that 49 marines and two sailors were "absent."

"Behind me stands the only true smart weapon. Only a Marine rifleman can kill a raging terrorist and not harm the woman and child right next to them," said Col. Jeffrey Patterson, 3rd Marines commander, his voice breaking with emotion.

"We can fly planes and we can drop bombs, but it takes people on the ground to show that we're serious," he said.

Lt. Col. Michael Ramos, commander of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, said, "Their performance was nothing short of magnificent and the stuff of Marine Corps legend."

Ramos recalled sharing a cigarette with one Marine during a break in heavy fighting. "He smiled, looked up at me and said, 'You just can't get this at IBM, can you, sir?'"