MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- Sgt. Byron Norwood is not only memorialized in the minds and hearts of those who knew him -- his memory is etched on the legs of two Marines who called him a good friend.
"He was all about the Marine Corps and he would have appreciated the (memorial) service. He was a Marine's Marine," Warrant Officer James R. Newton said May 4 at Camp Horno in a ceremony honoring Norwood and 32 others from 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, which helped spearhead the offensive on Fallujah in November 2004.
Newton and Staff Sgt. Pasquale R. Pappalardo memorialized Norwood in a special way. Their rolled-up trouser legs bear tattoos of an M16 A2 service rifle memorial, a helmet placed atop the buttstock, along with the dates of Norwood's birth and death. The 25-year-old squad leader died while in Fallujah performing a rescue mission.
Though not everyone who died while deployed to Iraq will be memorialized with a tattoo, Pappalardo said all of the battalion's fallen members deserve any honors an appreciative public can muster.
"On a moment's notice, (the battalion) went in and cleaned up Fallujah," he said. "They got the job done and the mission was accomplished.
"There can never be a final end, but something like this (service) to honor the families of the loved ones that passed away É is above and beyond what (the battalion) had to do," added Pappalardo, who recently joined the unit.
More than 1,000 Marines from the battalion attended the event, in addition to dozens of veterans, honored guests and Marines from other Camp Pendleton-based units.
Lance Cpl. Robert A. Leatherwood, a team leader with Company I, 3rd Bn., 1st Marines, said wrestling Fallujah from the grip of insurgents highlighted the deployment.
He called it a "good closing for a lot of us" within the war-weary battalion.
"A lot of the families hadn't had a chance to meet the men their loved ones served with," he added.
Michael L. Hanks, from Gregory, Mich., the father of Lance Cpl. Michael W. Hanks, agreed.
"The memorial was an opportunity to meet some of the guys. It's important that we remember the sacrifices; it's even more important that we don't forget," said Hanks, whose son was a team leader with Company L.
Hanks' son was only 22 when he died. He re-enlisted in the Corps shortly before his death, his father said.
Cpl. Dale A. Burger Jr. was only 21 when he died serving with Company I.
As a young child, he trick-or-treated in his father's Marine Corps uniform, said his mother, Martina C. Burger, from Churchville, Md.
She said her son loved being a Marine and that the battalion's Marines have been gracious in helping her and her family deal with their loss.
The battalion, which returned from a seven-month deployment in January, is preparing to return to Iraq in September.
E-mail Lance Cpl. Redding at daniel. redding@usmc.mil.