A New Family's Life Cut Short

By MICHAEL DUFFY, Brian Bennett, Mark Kukis

Age 26. Sergeant, U.S. Army. 1st Battalion, 18th Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division

Sniper fire, Baghdad

When Mario De Leon went home to the rolling hills of Petaluma, Calif., for the last time, dozens of well-wishers, firefighters and police officers lined the streets and stood on overpasses to see the black hearse go by. A group of teenage girls held a sign that read WE LOVE YOU. For De Leon's mother Barbara, the show of respect was in part a salve for an old wound. De Leon's father had served two tours in Vietnam. When he returned to the U.S., "they treated him like crap," she says. The motorcades and hand-painted signs that honored Mario's death were in stark contrast to how returning soldiers were treated in the last unpopular war. "America is trying to make up for that," she says.

Mario was shy when it came to praise and gratitude. Strangers stopped him and said thank you, but he didn't know how to react. Barbara had worried that she would lose him to gangs and drugs in high school. But he cleaned up and enlisted in the Army after graduation. It wasn't long before De Leon was shouldering a heavy SAW (squad automatic weapon) gun on his broad 6-ft. 2-in. frame through the rugged passes of Afghanistan with the 10th Mountain Division.

When he finished his tour in 2002, he left the Army and used the G.I. Bill to enroll at a local junior college. That's where he charmed his wife Erika with his handsome face, his goofy grin and a boyish obsession with ThunderCats cartoons and X-Men comic books. But by 2006, with a new baby boy named Keoni in the house, he decided to re-enlist. He hoped a career in the military would provide a stable income for his family. He arrived in Baghdad last October and was promoted to sergeant and squad leader. Two weeks later, he came into an enemy sniper's sights in Baghdad while leading a patrol. His squad fights on without him. "I wish to hell," Barbara says, "they'd get them home."