Marine Lance Cpl. Christopher M. McCrackin

Died November 14, 2005 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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20, of Liverpool, Texas; assigned to Battalion Landing Team 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.; attached to 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward); killed Nov. 14 by an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations against enemy forces during Operation Steel Curtain in New Ubaydi, Iraq. Also killed was Maj. Ramon J. Mendoza Jr.

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Two Marines from Texas killed in action in Iraq

The Associated Press

The mother of one of two Texas Marines killed this week in Iraq said her son always knew he wanted to serve in the military.

Marine Lance Cpl. Christopher M. McCrackin, 20, of Liverpool, died Nov. 14 in New Ubaydi, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device destroyed the vehicle he was driving. He was conducting combat operations as part of the U.S. Operation Steel Curtain offensive against insurgents along the western Iraqi border. Maj. Ramon J. Mendoza Junior, 37, of Columbus, Ohio, was also killed in the blast.

McCrackin’s twin brother, Michael, is a sailor in the Navy.

“Since they were 6 years old, they always said ‘We are soldiers,’ ” the twin’s mother, Belinda McCrackin, said in a story for Thursday’s editions of The Brownsville Herald. “They were interested in the discipline, the marching and the guns.”

Another Texas Marine, Cpl. John M. Longoria, was killed in a separate incident Nov. 14. Longoria, 21, of Nixon, died of wounds from small-arms fire during combat in New Ubaydi. The Euphrates River town is about 185 miles west of Baghdad and about 10 miles east of the Syrian border.

A starting running back on the Nixon-Smiley High School football team, Longoria also mentored elementary school students. He had lived with a foster family in Nixon, a town of about 2,000.

“He was a kid who always had a smile on his face and kind word for anyone he talked to,” Principal Hensley Cone said in a story in the San Antonio Express-News. “He came back to the school in his uniform after boot camp and he was proud to wear it.”

Longoria joined the Marines after high school and was on his second tour of duty in Iraq.

“He said he always wanted to join the military and he said the best branch for him would be the Marines because they would teach him discipline,” said his former teacher, Necia Kinnison. “I said ‘John, you don’t need discipline.’ ”

Like Longoria, Christopher McCrackin joined the Marines after graduation. McCrackin was born in Brownsville and graduated in 2004 from Alvin High School. He and his wife, Natalie, have a 10-month-old son, Ethan.

“We shouldn’t have any regrets because he died doing what he loved,” Natalie McCrackin said in a story in The Facts.

McCrackin also is survived by his father, Terry McCrackin; a sister, Selene; and grandparents William and Dori McCrackin and Natalio and Aurora Ramirez, the Houston Chronicle reported.

All three Marines were assigned to Battalion Landing Team 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, I Marine Expeditionary Force, from Camp Pendleton, Calif.

The fatalities bring the death toll for Texan service members to at least 178 since the war in Iraq began in March 2003, according to the Pentagon.