Marine Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Gould

Died March 2, 2007 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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28, of Longmont, Colo.; assigned to 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.; died March 2 while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq.

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Oklahoma Marine killed in Iraq, family reports

The Associated Press

NORMAN, Okla. — Karen Gould knew the news was bad when two Marine officers visited the beauty salon where she works March 2.

“I looked at them and I looked at my boss and I just kind of went sick,” said Gould, who was told her son, Staff Sgt. Dustin Michael Gould, a bomb technician, had been killed in Iraq. “He was disarming [a bomb] to save his whole platoon, and he took the fall for it. So he saved the others.”

Gould, 28, was scheduled to return home in April. Recently, his half-brother, who was in the Army, was killed by a sniper in Iraq.

Gould told his mother that military casualty officers would break the news in person.

“He was very proud of it [but] he was sick of the way things were,” she said.

The military has not confirmed Dustin Gould’s death.

Gould leaves behind a wife of eight years, Elizabeth, who lives in California; his father, David Gould, of Georgia; and a sister, Bethany White, 31, of Van Buren, Ark.

“He was the kindest, gentlest, sweetest person. I would have never, ever, believed in him going overseas, being a Marine,” Karen Gould said, calling her son a “good leader” who never whined or gave anyone trouble. She said he was an animal lover, and someone who would give the shirt off his back to others.

Dustin Gould was a native of Norman and attended elementary school there. He graduated from high school in Colorado, where he enlisted in the Marines.

Services are pending.

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Colorado Marine killed in Iraq

The Associated Press

LONGMONT, Colo. — A Colorado Marine was killed in Iraq when he tried to disarm a bomb, his mother said.

Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Gould, 28, of Longmont was killed March 2 in Anbar province, the military confirmed March 5.

He was assigned to 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Karen Gould said she “kind of went sick” when two Marine officers told her of her son’s death March 2.

“He was disarming [a bomb] to save his whole platoon, and he took the fall for it. So he saved the others,” she said last week.

Gould was scheduled to return home in April.

His survivors include a wife of eight years, Elizabeth, who lives in California; his father, David Gould, of Georgia; and a sister, Bethany White, 31, of Van Buren, Ark.

“He was the kindest, gentlest, sweetest person. I would have never, ever, believed in him going overseas, being a Marine,” Karen Gould said, calling her son a “good leader” who never whined or gave anyone trouble. She said he was an animal lover, and someone who would give the shirt off his back to others.

Dustin Gould was a native of Norman, Okla., and attended elementary school there. He graduated from high school in Colorado, where he enlisted in the Marines.

Camp Pendleton officials said Gould joined the Marine Corps on Oct. 7, 1996.

Navy Hospitalman Lucas W.A. Emch, 21, of Kent, Ohio, was also killed March 2 in Anbar province when a bomb exploded, the military said. Officials did not say whether the two deaths were related.