Marine Lance Cpl. Justin J. Wilson

Died March 22, 2010 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom

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24, of Palm City, Fla.; assigned to 3rd Battalion, 10th Marines, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.; died March 22 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

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Marine ‘had commitment, honor, respect’

The Associated Press

Justin Wilson was the kid who duct-taped his cousin to the dryer and stuffed his brother into a washing machine.

His uncle, Ed Forte, said Wilson also loved graffiti art, which was prominently displayed — “on what he thought was his personal gallery, that gallery being the many walls in Commack, Long Island, where he grew up.”

But Wilson also was the kid who watched a television documentary on the Marine Corps as he waited for Hurricane Frances to pass over in 2004. “That is what I want to be,” Forte recalled him saying.

He joined in January 2009.

Wilson, 24, of Palm City, Fla., was killed by a roadside bomb March 22 in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to Camp Lejeune.

The Marine married the woman his uncle said was “the girl of his dreams” in October. They were married by a justice of the peace and had been planning a big family wedding when Wilson returned from Afghanistan. He deployed the day after they married.

While in Afghanistan, Wilson enjoyed handing out candy from his care packages to local children and “believed in what he was doing,” said his father, Lance Wilson.

“I was so proud of him,” Lance Wilson said. “He had commitment, honor, respect.”