Sean Stokes, a U.S. Marine corporal from Lake of the Pines, was killed in recent action in Iraq, the Friends of Nevada County Military confirmed Monday.

Stokes, a 2001 graduate of Bear River High School, was on his third tour in Iraq.

He is the fourth Nevada County resident who has died in the war in Iraq.

“Sean was just a fun-loving boy who enjoyed life,” said Alexander Croft, Stokes’ teacher at Magnolia Intermediate School. “He was a nice kid who loved every project we did and just had a hunger for life.”

Other teachers also remembered Stokes with fondness.

“Sean was a real straightforward, honest kind of guy,” said Carl Koring, a former teacher of his at Bear River High School. “He was very serious and always wanted to do the right thing. He was quiet and retrospective. I respected him for his honesty and the way he took responsibility for himself.

“Sean was very serious about being a Marine. I’m sure he felt he was doing the right thing,” Koring added.

Koring was Stokes’ English teacher in his sophomore year. He was also Stokes’ counselor in his senior year.

Stokes was the first soldier the Friends welcomed home at the airport when they first started the program, said Fred Buhler of Friends of Nevada County Military.

“The community is saddened to hear about Sean’s death,” Buhler said.

Family members declined to comment on Stokes’ death. But his teachers remembered Stokes with fondness. --The Union, July 30, 2007.

By Jeff Ackerman, jeffa@theunion.com Aug 7, 2007

It would take a few days for the Department of Defense to publicly confirm what his family and friends already knew. Sean Stokes, just six years out of Bear River High School, was killed somewhere in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar. The 24-year-old Marine corporal was on his third tour in Iraq. In combat a third time is not a charm. Especially for a Marine who did not hesitate to put his life on the line for his brothers. That's right. Sean Stokes did not die for us. Let's not kid ourselves. Yes, he loved his country - and probably a good number of people he shared it with - but he loved his fellow Marines more. And that's how the government gets young men and women to fight and sometimes die. Patriotism comes a distant second to brotherhood, the notion that the guy next to you and the guy next to him are all willing to kill and, if necessary, die for you. And no military branch knows that better than the Marines.

Semper Fidelis - Always Faithful.

That pretty much sums up Sean Stokes. Part of a vicious door-to-door fight for Fallujah (the jugular vein of the Al Anbar Province) in November 2004, which would become the premise for a book titled, "We Were One," by Patrick O'Donnell, Sean was nearly blown to pieces by a grenade that landed close enough for him to kick it. When it finally exploded, Stokes was hit by several pieces of shrapnel. "Stokes resisted evacuation," recalled O'Donnell in his book. "He told Sergeant Kyle, 'I don't want to go back. I'm fine, I'm fine. I don't want to leave.' The corpsman decreed that he (Stokes) had to go because he was so badly concussed (from the grenade) that he couldn't remember his Social Security number. 'Wounded, almost dying from the grenade, and seeing his buddy get killed by the (enemy) in the house, and Stokes still wanted to stay in the battle. It says a lot about a Marine.'"

Later in the book, the author quotes another member of Stokes' squad. "Even though they kill one of us, it makes us come together more; this just shows how much we stick together. All we have is us."

"All we have is us." Note that the Marine did not say anything about you, or me. We weren't there. We were probably busy here, maybe debating the merits of the war over coffee. Perhaps occupying ourselves with things (Thanksgiving and Christmas) far removed from the events in Iraq.

The Department of Defense has a Web site that serves as a macabre scoreboard, just in case we want to check in on the war's toll from time to time. As of Sunday at 12:40 p.m. (as I write this), there were 3,655 confirmed U.S. deaths in Iraq and 14 "pending" notification of family on that scoreboard. Stokes, Sean A. was listed 20th from the top. "Hostile Fire, Al Anbar Province," reads the short explanation of Stokes' last moments of life on July 30.

"The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Freedom," reads the DOD news release of Sean's death. I wonder if that's how Sean would have explained his own death. I suspect it might instead have read, "The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting his brothers." The official DOD statement goes on to say that Sean died "from wounds suffered while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province in Iraq. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 1 Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendelton, Calif." They list a phone number (760-725-5044) for media questions about "this Marine."

I didn't have to call the DOD media hotline to find out what I needed to know about "this Marine" who was Sean A. Stokes. "Sean was our hero," said his stepmother Sue Stokes. "Sean was courageous, dedicated and passionate about what he was doing. He cared deeply for his fellow Marines and volunteered to deploy on his last tour to watch out for his brothers in arms."

In other words, Sean didn't have to return to Iraq a third time. But he couldn't stand to be here while his brothers were still there. Whatever the Marines taught him stuck. The rest - courage, loyalty, character - you just can't teach. Sean Stokes had that inside him probably long before he enlisted. And our country is worse today without him.

Operation Freedom? I don't know. If that's what we are selling these men and women to get them to go to places where humans are used as bombs and where freedom is probably difficult to even comprehend, that's fine. But don't believe for a second that Stokes died so that some Iraqi will one day be free to choose which version of the Koran to follow. He died for his fellow Marines and for reasons most of us will never really understand.

Jeff Ackerman is the publisher of The Union. His column appears on Tuesdays. Contact him at 477-4299, jeffa@theunion.com, or 464 Sutton Way, Grass Valley 95945.