<p>Joseph Fitzgerald Jr. served in the Marine Corps from 1980 to 1986. He recalled yesterday how he lost friends and squadron members in a suicide-bomb attack in Beirut in 1983, just two barracks from where he lived.</p>
<p>"I can sympathize with what the U.S. soldiers are going through now" in Iraq, he said. "President Bush just declared the war over, so why are soldiers still dying every day?"</p>