Marine Pfc. Deryk L. Hallal

Died April 6, 2004 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

24, of Indianapolis; assigned to 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.; killed April 6 by hostile fire in Anbar province, Iraq.

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Indianapolis Marine killed in Iraq battle

By Jon Murray

The Indianapolis Star

Pfc. Deryk L. Hallal looks serious in his Marine Corps photo. Too serious, his mother says — and not at all like the man who often performed impressions of John Kerry, Ross Perot and the commander in chief he admired, George W. Bush.

“He was a big jokester,” Pam Hallal said. “He could light up the room.”

She remembered the humorous side of her son after he died April 5 in Iraq, less than two months after leaving home. The 24-year-old North Central High School graduate was among more than a dozen Marines killed in recent days and was the second Hoosier to die in Iraq this week.

Hallal was shot and killed in al-Anbar province in western Iraq, military officials said.

He was a rifleman with the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif. He joined the Marines last May, just months after the conflict with Iraq began.

Pam Hallal, 43, and her husband, Jeff, 46, were told of their son’s death at their Far-Northside home a day after he died. They said their son was glad to be in Iraq and wanted to give hope to Iraqis.

“He believed so strongly in the freedoms of America,” Jeff Hallal said. “When someone signs up in the times we’ve had since 9/11, you can’t deny that that philosophic feeling is there.”

The Marine Corps on March 24 took over operations in al-Anbar province, which stretches west from Baghdad to the border with Jordan. .

Including Hallal, 25 men with Indiana ties have died in the Middle East since the build-up to war began last year.

On Sunday, 20-year-old Army Pfc. John D. Amos II, who grew up in Griffith and Valparaiso, died after an explosive struck his military vehicle in the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk.

Hallal is the fifth Marine from Indiana to die in the campaign.

Pam Hallal said her son enjoyed playing big brother to his two sisters and two brothers, who range in age from 3 to 19.

When he came home on leave from California around Christmas, she said, his 3-year-old sister Alaia would lay down next to him to chat.

“He loved his baby sister,” she said. “He said that when he had his first child he hoped it was a girl, and he was going to name her Alaia.”

Matt Hamman, 23, said the friend he had known since seventh grade told him before leaving for Iraq that he couldn’t wait for Hamman and his wife, Angie, to have their first child this summer. The three had grown up together — Hamman lived across the street — and Deryk Hallal was like a brother.

Hamman said he was worried about his friend when he enlisted in the military last year.

“He was determined to go over there and fight,” Hamman said. “I was pretty nervous when he told me. I thought it’d be over by the time he (arrived).”

After graduating from North Central in 1998, Hallal studied computer programming at Professional Careers Institute. He also modeled occasionally, his mother said, taking advantage of the 6-foot 5-inch frame he had used as a wide receiver in high school.

But his dream was to be a sports agent, his father said.

After Hallal left in late February, the family received two short phone calls from him, the last on March 31.

“You only get three minutes to talk,” Jeff Hallal said, so they spoke about the upcoming collegiate Final Four basketball tournament, the family and the situation in Iraq.

Their son couldn’t tell them exactly where he was, but they asked if he was in a volatile western area that had been in the news because of intense fighting.

He was, he told them.

“Because he’s a Christian and we knew he loved the Lord,” Pam Hallal said, “we knew he respected President Bush and wanted to fight for our country and the freedom of others.

“We knew the Lord would protect him unless he had a better purpose.”