In Marine's Death, Clues to a Son's Life

Alex spelled poorly, shaking his confidence as he advanced in school. Seeking smaller classes, his parents enrolled him at Sandy Spring Friends School, an eclectic prep school where students call teachers by their first names and are exposed to the Quaker tenets of peace and pacifism.

Alex applied himself to only what interested him -- Russian history, Brazilian history, creative writing -- and posted erratic grades reflecting that. He came to see college as a place others headed simply to get a degree. Without studying, he posted an SAT score high enough to give him a good shot at Georgetown.

Gilda handed him an application. "You'll have the most fun you've had in your life," she said.

Alex began to fill it out but halted at a section he viewed as phony. "This is when the person applying to college writes these essays saying what wonderful people they are," Gilda recalled him saying. "I'm not doing that."

Alex stood a wafer-thin 5 feet 7 inches tall, making it that much more shocking when he told his parents that he had enlisted after high school. The three drove to the Marine recruiting office in Rockville. "You can live a year of your life wasting time," the recruiter told them. "Or you can live it, planning every minute of it, and living it well."

To Gilda, it sounded like a standard spiel for parents. But part of it reflected her beliefs. "The unexamined life is not worth living," she thought.

Alex's decision stunned friends. He was the kid playing Dungeons & Dragons, the garage-band guitarist, the high-schooler squeezed into a booth at TGI Friday's, sucking down cigarettes and endless cups of coffee. He told them that he wanted to be financially free, to travel, to become stronger. "You know what," he told buddy Jon Codell, cutting off his concerns, "I think it's honorable."

Alex shipped off for boot camp at Parris Island in summer 1998. His parents soaked up his letters.

"My first shot was in the 2-ring center and to the left," Alex wrote. He had to nail seven bull's-eyes from 500 yards in his final seven shots. He did, "and so now I can move on in boot camp."

After graduating, Alex was sent to Japan to maintain electronic components of Marine aircraft.

"Hi Bug," Gilda e-mailed, addressing him by a nickname she had coined when he was a baby. "Well, so it's Lance Corporal now. Fantastic! What is the rank that follows it? Some sort of sergeant?"

"What follows lance Corporal is Corporal," Alex responded. "A lance Corporal is just a Corporal without a horse. I learned that yesterday. From the sound of it, most LCPL's don't get their horse for about three years in this particular occupation."