http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/1830715 Spring Branch family mourning death of Marine son in accident
By DALE LEZON
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
The Houston father of a U.S. Marine killed in a helicopter crash in Kuwait said his son had been a high school football player and honor student who later developed a passion to serve his country.
Cpl. Brian Matthew Kennedy, 25, died along with three other U.S. Marines and eight British Marines when their CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashed Thursday about nine miles south of the Iraqi border town of Umm Qasr. Military officials said no hostile fire was reported in the area.
Kennedy's father, Mark D. Kennedy, said his son was proud to fight for Iraq's freedom.
"All he ever said was that it was his duty and he was looking forward to serving," Mark Kennedy said.
The Kennedy's Spring Branch-area home was somber Friday night. Mark Kennedy, his wife, Valerie, his daughter, Gretchen Helgeson, 28, and her husband, Brett Helgeson, 29, hugged one another.
They stared quietly at a photograph taken of Brian Kennedy in his Marine dress uniform.
"He was a very brave young man," said his stepmother, Valerie Kennedy.
Mark Kennedy said the military told him that the exact cause of the crash had not been determined, but that hostile fire was not suspected.
He said his son had been trained as a mechanic and was crew chief on the helicopter.
"Our son and brother proudly volunteered to serve in the United States Marine Corps," Mark Kennedy said in a prepared statement. "He gave his life in a effort to contribute to the freedom of the Iraqi people. We are so very proud of him and of his service to his country."
Mark Kennedy said his son grew up in Glenview, Ill. He was a starting guard on the football team at Glenbrook South High School and helped the team reach the conference championship game as a junior. He graduated from high school in 1995 and enrolled at Purdue University, where he studied mechanical engineering and played lacrosse.
In about 1997, he transferred to Texas Tech University and continued to study mechanical engineering. But his calling was to be a U.S. Marine, he told his father. A fellow student who had been a Marine became an inspiration to him, his father said. He left college and enlisted in 1999.
"He was very excited about it," he said.
Brian Kennedy was stationed at Camp Pendleton, a Marine base in Southern California near San Diego, his father said.
In addition to his father and sister, he is survived by his mother, Melissa Derbyshire, of Port Clyde, Maine. Derbyshire could not be reached for comment Friday night.
Mark Kennedy said he was uncertain when funeral services would be held.
http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-marinekilled0321,0,6468866.story?coll=bal-home-headlines Baltimore man among those killed in Iraq
Kendall D. Waters-Bey was crew chief of chopper that crashed in desert
By Eric Siegel and Reginald Fields
Sun Staff
Originally published March 21, 2003, 11:20 PM EST
One of the first U.S. casualties of the Iraqi war was a 29-year- old Marine from Northeast Baltimore who joined the corps out of high school and leaves behind a wife and young son and a grieving family that mourns his loss while questioning the necessity of the conflict.
Staff Sgt. Kendall D. Waters-Bey, who grew up not far from Herring Run Park and attended Northern and Harbor City high schools, was among 12 servicemen -- eight British commandos and four U.S. Marines -- who died Thursday night when their helicopter crashed and burned about nine miles south of Umm Qasr, an Iraqi town near the Kuwait border.
"Man, I'm devastated," said Michael Waters-Bey, the Marine's father, who received the news every parent of a serviceman at war dreads, about 3 a.m. Friday. "He was my only son, my oldest child."
"I couldn't believe it until the Marines came to my door" to offer condolences early Friday afternoon, he said.
Michelle Waters, the oldest of the dead Marine's four sisters, criticized the U.S. government for starting the hostilities.
"It's all for nothing, that war could have been prevented," she said Friday night in the living room of the family home, tears running down her cheeks. "Now, we're out of a brother. [President] Bush is not out of a brother. We are."
Based at Camp Pendleton in California, Waters-Bey had taken his 10-year-old son, Kenneth, to live with him in San Diego last Thanksgiving. But he sent Kenneth back to Baltimore to live with the boy's mother when he received his orders to go to Kuwait in February.
The boy said that after moving to California his father took him to a gun range, showed him around the military base and played ball with him.
"I'm feeling sad now because my father is gone and I won't see him again," said Kenneth, who is in the fifth grade at Halstead Academy in Hillendale, Baltimore County.
Waters-Bey was the crew chief of the CH-46 Sea Knight, a bus- like helicopter with twin rotors used to fly troops to forward positions. The model is a Vietnam War-era aircraft that has been beset in recent years by mechanical difficulties.
Reports of the age and troubled history of helicopters like the one Waters-Bey was flying in when it crashed -- apparently by accident -- bothered his father. "The U.S. government owes me an explanation," Michael Waters-Bey said.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and a Marine spokesman issued statements of condolences Friday, as did Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley.
O'Malley, who called the Waters-Bey family early Friday evening, ordered flags at city buildings to fly at half staff in Waters-Bey's honor.
"On behalf of the citizens of Baltimore, I extend my heartfelt condolences to his family, many friends and all who have been touched by his life and untimely death," the mayor's statement said.
The other U.S. Marines killed in Thursday's crash were Maj. Jay Thomas Aubin, 36, of Waterville, Maine; Capt. Ryan Anthony Beaupre, 30, of Bloomington, Ill., and Cpl. Brian Matthew Kennedy, 25, of Houston.
Tawanda Poteat, Kenneth's mother and Waters-Bey's first wife, was pregnant when Waters-Bey decided to join the Marines.
"He said he wanted to get away from being on the streets," Michael Waters-Bey said. "He wanted to do something positive to take care of his son."
A steady stream of friends called and stopped by the family's modest rowhouse Friday, many weeping openly, others holding back tears.
"Neighbors are taking it like family members. That's how good a person he was," Michael Waters-Bey said.
One neighbor, Darrell Holland, described Waters-Bey as "the nicest person you'd ever want to meet."
"The smile on his face tells you everything," Holland said. "You couldn't get a better brother, cousin or son."
At 6-feet-1 and over 200 pounds, family members said, Waters-Bey, whom they called Kenny, was an excellent swimmer who loved to barbecue ribs and make people laugh.
"He was always making jokes," said another sister, Shernell Waters-Bey. "He would cut up. He'd make funny faces. He'd walk funny."
Shernell Waters-Bey said she last talked to her brother before he left for Kuwait in early February.
"He said, 'Nellie, I love you. I'll see you when I get back,'" she recalled.
She said she was working the night shift at the Rite Aid warehouse in Harford County when a co-worker told her a helicopter had crashed and four U.S. servicemen had been killed.
"I wasn't thinking too much of it," she said. "Out of four people, I wouldn't ever imagine in my wildest dreams one of them would be my brother."
She learned of her brother's death when she arrived at the family home after getting off work and her mother, Angela Waters-Bey, was on the phone.
"I got to get off and tell Nellie," she heard her mother say.
"Tell Nellie what?" she asked.
"Kenny's gone," her mother said.
Poteat, Waters-Bey's first wife, said she had more of a premonition when she heard about the crash on television, even before the names of those killed were released.
That's because on Thursday, she and young Kenneth seemed to talk more than usual about Waters-Bey. Poteat had agreed she was going to try to get a computer for her son so that he could send e-mails to his father in the Iraqi desert.
"It was really odd for us to talk so much about his father on any day like we did that day," Poteat said. "Then when I heard about the crash, I just got a really bad feeling, like that's why his father was on his mind so much."
Waters-Bey is also survived by his wife, Belinda Waters-Bey of San Diego, Calif., and two other sisters, Sharita Waters-Bey and Nakia Waters, both of Baltimore.
Family members said they were told that Waters-Bey's body would be flown first to Germany and then to California. Funeral arrangements were pending.
Sun staff writers Lane Harvey Brown, Doug Donovan and Tanika White and wire services contributed to this article.