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Family Unsettled by Inquiry
Martin Terrazas Jr. visits the grave site of his brother, a Marine who was killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha, Iraq.
(Photos By Sylvia Moreno -- The Washington Post)
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The lance corporal was the latest military enlistee in the extended Terrazas family, which includes several Marine and Army veterans. Three youngsters, including Miguel's 14-year-old brother, Andy, say they are destined for the Marines as soon as they graduate from high school.
Mike, as his family called him, enlisted as soon as he graduated in 2003 from Mountain View High School, where he played left guard for the varsity football team. Aware that he was not ready to try college, he told his father that the military was the place for him to figure out what to do with his life. "I said, 'Great, mijo . That's wonderful,' " Terrazas recalled.
Growing up, Miguel was an avid hunter of birds and rabbits in the desert that surrounds El Paso. That skill translated into excellent marksmanship during his 2004 training at Camp Pendleton in California. He was so proficient at daytime and zero-visibility exercises, he was designated point man for his squad when it left for Iraq in June 2004.
During his first four months of deployment in two suburbs of Fallujah, Terrazas was the only Marine in his platoon to shoot and kill an insurgent whom he saw running from an ambush of a Marine patrol, according to his former platoon commander. He was awarded a Certificate of Commendation.
During the invasion of Fallujah, he continued to serve as squad point man, was involved in several firefights with insurgents and was a driver for one of the platoon's Humvees, "showing an uncanny ability to drive through debris and around obstacles/gunfire at high speeds without risking his fellow Marines on board," wrote his former commanding officer, Jesse Grapes, in a letter to Martin Terrazas Sr. after his son's death.
After his first deployment, Miguel returned to El Paso with stories about insurgents who used civilians as human shields. He recounted killing Iraqis armed with AK-47s, some of them accompanied by children, and other Iraqis inside bomb-rigged houses. He said he did what he was trained to do -- "disarm and take down" -- yet asked his father while home on leave, "Do you think God is going to forgive me for what happened?"
"He went to talk to a priest, and the priest assured him that if he was doing his duty, protecting himself and the other Marines, he did the right thing," the father recalled. "That took a big load off his back."
On Nov. 29, that same priest said the funeral Mass for Miguel at St. Ignatius Catholic Church, where as a child, Terrazas had been baptized and confirmed, and as a Marine, he had sought solace.
