Marine Lance Cpl. Shane L. Goldman

Died April 5, 2004 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

20, of Orange, Texas; assigned to 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.; killed April 5 by hostile fire in Anbar province, Iraq.

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Hundreds in Orange remember solider

Associated Press

ORANGE, Texas — The uncle of Lance Cpl. Shane Goldman said it was his nephew’s dream to become a Marine.

“Ever since he could walk and talk, he wanted to be a Marine. He made it,” Neal Davis told close to 1,000 mourners gathered at North Orange Baptist Church for the funeral of the 19-year-old, who died April 5 in Iraq.

Davis, a 61-year-old retired Marine, told the mourners that the last time he saw his nephew was three days before Goldman shipped out for duty in Japan and later for his second tour in Iraq.

During a conversation that lasted for more than an hour at a restaurant outside the gates of Camp Pendleton, Calif., Davis said Goldman told him he was worried he might not make it home a second time.

“He knew it was tough, he’d gone to Iraq one time,” Davis said. “He said, ‘Uncle Neal, I have a bad feeling about this.’ I told him to keep his head down.”

“He started to walk away and then turned back with that little grin and said, ‘I’m not sure how bad it’s going to be, but tell the family I’ll try not to let them down,”’ Davis said. Emotion thickening his voice, Davis said, “He didn’t.”

Goldman, who leaves behind a fianc©e, attended Little Cypress-Mauriceville High School and graduated from Parkview Baptist High School in Louisiana before joining the Marine Corps in 2002.

The Marine’s father, George “Scooter” Goldman of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, said that when Shane was growing up he used to kiss his father goodbye on the phone.

In the last call he received from his son, Shane told Scooter how different this mission felt from the first time he was in Iraq and kissed him goodbye on the phone again.

“He told me that they (the Iraqis) don’t like us like they did the first time,” Goldman said.

Goldman’s flag-draped casket was carried from the church by an honor guard of Marines. The funeral procession was led through Orange by an escort of more than 20 police, sheriff’s and emergency services vehicles with their lights flashing.

Goldman was buried with full military honors.

The memorial service for a soldier from the Central Texas town of Rocksprings is set for Saturday at Rocksprings School Auditorium. The funeral for Sgt. Cody Eckhart, 25, who died April 10 in Iraq, was set for Sunday at the United Methodist Church in Hondo.