Marine Lance Cpl. John J. Van Gyzen IV

Died July 5, 2004 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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21, of Bristol, Mass.; assigned to 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, at Twentynine Palms, Calif.; killed July 5 by enemy action in Anbar province, Iraq.

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Massachusetts Marine killed in Iraq buried with honors

Associated Press

TAUNTON, Mass. — A Marine from New England who was killed in Iraq was remembered Thursday at a funeral service as a loving son and brother who hoped to make a difference by being in the military.

John J. Van Gyzen IV, 21, who grew up in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, was killed on July 5 in Iraq’s Anbar province.

Van Gyzen’s sister, Bethany, read aloud from a letter from their mother, Dotti Arsenault: “Twenty-one years ago God blessed me with a baby boy who came into this world a fighter and now 21 years later he has come to take him home.”

“You are my hero,” the letter continued. “I regret I will not see my baby’s face or see his boyish grin or hear his wholehearted laugh for a while, but in my memories, all that remains very real.”

Van Gyzen was buried with full military honors at the Rhode Island Veterans Cemetery in Exeter, R.I., the Taunton Gazette reported.

Rev. Elinor Carriere, of West Warwick, R.I., said she met John when he was a boy of 10 or 11. She said he believed he could make a difference by being a Marine and make the country a better place.

Rev. Robert Rust, pastor at the West Congregational Church, where the funeral was held, said Van Gyzen was an “American hero.”

Van Gyzen was born June 16, 1983 and died July 5, 2004. Rust said what matters is not the two dates, but the dash between them.

John “spent his dash well,” Rust said. “John was a gift from God, as each and every one of us is a gift from God to one another. Today we give thanks for that gift.”