Marine Cpl. Daniel R. Amaya

Died April 11, 2004 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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22, of Odessa, Texas; assigned to 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.; killed April 11 by hostile gunfire in Anbar province, Iraq.

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Texan dies in Iraq

Associated Press

ODESSA, Texas — Kacey Carpenter remembered her son Tuesday as a man with a great wit who had nurtured many dreams, including a career with the Marines.

Cpl. Daniel Amaya, 22, was killed Sunday during his second tour in Iraq.

“This was a great passion of his,” Carpenter said. “He thoroughly, thoroughly loved being a Marine.” As a youngster, she said, “he’d played secret agent games, shooting guns, I guess to prepare himself.”

Amaya was one of two Marines killed by hostile fire in Al Anbar Province and among at least seven military personnel with Texas ties who died in combat in the past week.

Kacey Carpenter learned of Amaya’s death Easter Sunday morning. She and her husband, David, heard the doorbell ring after returning from church.

“As soon as it rang, I knew,” Kacey Carpenter said. “I just fell apart. I said, ‘Please don’t say it.’ My husband just held me and I got myself together and I said, ‘Tell me everything.”’

She learned her son had been shot once in his neck and once in the shoulder.

“I didn’t have a good feeling about this tour in Iraq,” Carpenter said. “I just didn’t have a peaceful feeling.”

Carpenter said she was asleep when Amaya was killed.

“Why didn’t I wake up?” she said. “Why didn’t I know when my baby got hurt?”

Amaya graduated from Odessa High School in 2000, where he was a cheerleader and played in the band. Carpenter recalled how her son joked with her much of his life, the last time during a phone call at 4 a.m. Iraqi time about a week ago.

“He was always the ham of the family. He loved to play jokes on people. I think that’s what he lived for.”