Combat casualty Menusa gets farewell in Tracy

By JIM WASSERMAN
Associated Press Writer

TRACY, Calif. (AP) The last time Joseph Menusa's mother saw him, as he was shipping off to fight in Iraq, she told her Marine son this time he would not return alive.

Before a Tuesday night memorial service, she recalled that January conversation.

``He cried when I told him that. He said, 'No, I'll be back,''' Virginia Kenny said. ``It's probably just a mother's instinct.''

Menusa, a 33-year-old gunnery sergeant and veteran of the 1991 gulf war, did die in Iraq shot in the head during a March 27 ambush, his stepfather, Mike Kenny, said in an interview.

The Kennys gathered with more than 400 well wishers, World War II veterans and uniformed Marines alike, to bid farewell to the Philippines-born Marine recruiter who was posthumously awarded U.S. citizenship last week.

They mourned with prayers, yellow ribbons, hymns and the American and Philippines national anthems.

The audience included the man who himself recruited Menusa in 1989, Master Gunnery Sgt. Gary Mitchell.

``His death was not in vain,'' Mitchell told the audience assembled at the community center in this bedroom community about 50 miles east of San Francisco toward the Central Valley. ``He immensely enjoyed what he was doing and if he had to do it over again, I'm sure he would have done the same thing.''

Menusa's younger brother David, a 30-year-old Marine drill instructor in San Diego, drew a standing ovation for his emotional 10-minute elegy.

``One thing I regret is that night he took off, I never told him I love him. He told me, 'I'll be back, don't worry bro, I'll be back. It'll be over in three months','' David Menusa said. ``He came back, I had to meet him in a box. Me and my dad picked him up like always, but this time it was in the cargo area.''

After family members spoke, parents of young men Menusa recruited expressed their gratitude for the influence he had on their sons' lives how he encouraged recruits to build self-confidence by getting good grades and seeing the world beyond their own community.

Family members said Menusa was assigned to secure oil fields and was shot while accompanying an infantry unit on its first day in Iraq. It was similar work to the gulf war, when his job was to disarm mines and help secure Kuwaiti oil fields.

Relatives said the 14-year Marine veteran tried for seven years as a permanent resident to get citizenship. But his military schedule caused him to miss appointments with immigration officials.

Military authorities in January assigned Menusa to the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton. He left for the Middle East on Feb. 5, telling his wife of seven years, Stacy Menusa, not to worry. She said she last heard from him March 22, when he was in Kuwait.

Menusa immigrated to the United States when he was 10. Raised in San Jose, he graduated in 1989 from Silver Creek High School, then joined the Marines.

Originally intending to join the Air Force, his wife said he changed his mind after he saw girls swarming around a uniformed Marine recruiter. Menusa later worked as a recruiter in several San Francisco Bay cities.

During his military career, Menusa also had been stationed in Japan, Cuba and Hawaii.

Family members said Menusa will be buried Friday in Santa Maria after a funeral Mass.

He is survived by his wife, a 3-year-old son, Joshua, and by his parents and three brothers.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)