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Md. Marine Killed in Iraq Crash
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She said she believed that "part of it was that he wanted to prove something. That he could do that." Nor did he leave matters to chance. She said Snyder prepared himself through weight training and sports.
Snyder apparently enlisted shortly after graduating from Westminster Senior High School, where Brown, his former childhood basketball coach, is an assistant principal.
"He was small in stature," Brown recalled. "Always one of the shortest ones there." And he was quiet, too, Brown said.
But on the basketball court, it proved inconsequential. "He was just a ball of fire," Brown said. "He went at everything with full intensity."
When Snyder finished high school, Brown said, he "certainly didn't hesitate to step forward and put his life on the line. . . . He knew he was doing the right thing." He joined the Marines in October 2003, when he was 18 and working as a generator mechanic.
The family spokeswoman said Brown was the son of Julie and Albert Snyder. The Marines said his mother lives in Westminster and his father lives in Pennsylvania. He had two sisters, Sarah and Tracie, the aunt said.
The Pentagon said he was assigned to Combat Service Support Group-1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Twentynine Palms, Calif.
Staff researcher Madonna Leibling contributed to this report.
