Marine Lance Cpl. Richard C. Clifton

Died February 3, 2005 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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19, of Milford, Del.; assigned to 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif.; killed Feb. 3 by enemy action in Anbar province, Iraq.

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Delaware family mourns loss of Marine

By Randall Chase

Associated Press

DOVER, Del. — A 19-year-old Marine from Delaware has been killed in Iraq, his family said Friday.

Lance Cpl. Richard Chad Clifton, son of Richard C. and Terri Clifton of Milton, was killed Wednesday in Anbar province in western Iraq, said his mother, who last spoke to her son on Monday.

“I got an e-mail from him and he called home,” she said. “He was very tired. He had only had about three hours of sleep in three days.”

Flags flew at half-staff Friday at Cape Henlopen High School, from which Clifton graduated in June 2003 before entering boot camp later that same year.

Clifton, a member of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif., before being deployed to Iraq. He was scheduled to return home next month.

Terri Clifton said her son, trained as a radio operator, volunteered to take over the communications duties for a weapons company in November after three members of the unit were killed.

Clifton said her son had a chance to go to the Naval Academy after high school but decided that if he were considering making the Marine Corps a career, he wanted to experience it “from the ground up.”

“He wanted to be a real Marine,” said Clifton, who described her son as “one of the most brilliant people I ever met.”

“He could argue politics, theology, whatever you threw at him,” she said. “He was gifted in a lot of ways. He had an incredible sense of humor.”

“We hurt for our loss, but we hurt just as much because the world has no idea what it lost,” she said.

A lacrosse player in high school, Chad Clifton also enjoyed playing paintball and listening to “anything except opera.”

“He did condescend to buy me an Andrea Bocelli for my birthday,” his mother said.

In addition to his parents, Chad Clifton is survived by a younger brother, Ryan.