Marine Capt. John J. McKenna IV

Died August 16, 2006 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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30, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; assigned to 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserve, Albany, N.Y.; killed Aug. 16 while conducting combat operations in Fallujah, Iraq.

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Marine’s memory honored in Brooklyn

By David B. Carus

The Associated Press

NEW YORK — A state police trooper and Marine Corps platoon commander killed in Iraq was remembered Friday at his parish church, just a few blocks from the Brooklyn street where he played stickball and soldier as a boy.

Family, friends and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani turned out for the farewell to Capt. John J. McKenna IV, of Clifton Park, who was fatally shot Aug. 16 while on a foot patrol in Fallujah. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion 25th Marines, a reserve unit based in Albany.

The 30-year-old Brooklyn native was one of two members of the unit killed that day, along with Lance Corporal Michael D. Glover, of Garden City. Glover, a full-time law student at Pace University before his deployment, was to be buried on Saturday.

McKenna’s body arrived at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church inside a silver hearse that drove past a block-long line of Marines, police officers and state troopers. As bagpipers played “The Marines’ Hymn,” an honor guard of Marines and state troopers carried the casket into the church.

“I pray that I can emulate his courage,” said the Rev. Joseph Fonti, a childhood friend of McKenna who delivered the eulogy. Their families lived just six houses apart on East Second Street.

McKenna joined the Marines in 1998 after earning a history degree from Binghamton University. He was on active duty until 2003, when he became a reservist.

He served in Uzbekistan and had one previous tour in Iraq before his deployment to Fallujah in late March. His unit was scheduled to return home in October.

McKenna had been a state police trooper since 2005, and was most recently assigned to the Kingston barracks. He is to be buried at Saratoga National Cemetery in Schuylerville, 186 miles north of New York City.

McKenna is survived by his mother, Karen, his father, John, a sister, Allyson Zehrfuhs, and a niece, Michaela Zehrfuhs.