Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel R. Wyatt

Died October 12, 2004 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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22, of Caledonia, Wis.; assigned to 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Corps Reserve, Chicago; killed Oct. 12 by enemy action in Babil province, Iraq.

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Wisconsin Marine killed in Iraq

By Xiao Zhang

Associated Press

RACINE, Wis. — Laura Watson will never forget the day Lance Cpl. Daniel Wyatt proposed.

It was March 9 — the same day he was called up for active duty that would eventually take him to Iraq, where he died this week.

“He proposed to me at eight o’clock in the morning, and at eight at night, 12 hours later, he got the call.

“I was bawling my eyes. I didn’t want him to go,” his fiancee said Thursday.

“He was like, ‘I’ve been training for three years. This is the time people need me to help.”’

Wyatt, 22, a rifleman from Racine, was killed Tuesday in the Babil province southwest of Baghdad, Chief Warrant Officer Terry Bellis told The Journal Times of Racine. Wyatt had been in Iraq for only a few weeks, said Bellis, of the Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Center in Milwaukee.

Bellis said Wyatt served with Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines. He joined the Marine Reserves three years ago, and his unit was activated June 1.

Wyatt’s stepmother, Kathy Sullivan of Racine, said he joined the Marines out of a desire to serve the country and went to boot camp right after graduating with honors from Racine Horlick High School in 2001.

“Some people are born to serve,” she said. “They feel responsible for that. They enjoy it.”

She and other family members described Daniel as quiet but venturesome, and a lover of music, reading history and sports. His mother died when he was a boy, and the family later moved from Prospect Heights, Ill., to the Racine area in 1992, Sullivan said.

They had a hobby farm at nearby Caledonia, Sullivan said. She and Daniel’s father, David Wyatt, divorced in 1999, and Daniel stayed with his father in Caledonia until after high school. His father no longer lives in the area, Sullivan said.

She said Daniel showed his caring nature in the separate letters he wrote to everyone, telling them he loved them and mentioning a couple times that he might not make it back. But he didn’t complain, she said.

“Daniel wasn’t a whiner,” she said. “Nobody wants war, but sometimes it needs to be fought.”

When asked for her own view on the war in Iraq, she declined to comment.

After boot camp, Daniel had enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee but later went to Milwaukee Area Technical College where he was studying to become a police officer before the call-up, Sullivan said.

“We will miss him horribly,” she said. “He lived a short life but a good life.”

Administrators of the Racine United School District planned to meet early Friday to discuss how best to honor Wyatt’s memory,” spokeswoman Linda Flashinski said. An event likely will be planned for early next week, she said.

Wyatt was the second Wisconsin Marine killed in Iraq in less than a week and the 23rd soldier from Wisconsin to die in the war.

Marine Pfc. Andrew Halverson, 19, of the village of Muscoda in southwestern Wisconsin, died Saturday as a result of enemy action in Iraq’s Anbar province, military authorities said.