Marine Lance Cpl. James W. Higgins, 22, of Frederick, Md.; assigned to 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.; died July 27 from wounds received while conducting combat operations in Fallujah, Iraq.
HE LOVED HISTORY
Lance Cpl. James W. Higgins Jr. was fascinated by the past. His favorite musician was Frank Sinatra; his favorite comedians, Abbott and Costello; his favorite books, histories -- particularly anything about World War II.
His mother, Deborah Higgins, said he died of a gunshot wound to the chest.
His younger brother, Joseph, 20, was hardly able to speak in anything but a whisper. He held his brother's big, black Casio G-Shock watch, still set eight hours ahead to Iraqi time.
"He thought it was an honor to be part of the military," his mother said. "He had his worries, obviously, but he kept saying it'd be all right."
As he neared the end of his tour, he became eager to come home. He sent home a photo of him standing next to a Humvee. His eyes are shadowed, his face harder than in the pictures of him smiling before the war; perhaps because of the bright desert sun, but the symbolism was not lost on his mother.
When she asked about it, he told her: "This place changes people."
Her last conversation with him was July 23. "When he called me Sunday, he told me it was getting really bad," she said. "The danger had escalated so much."
"Be safe," she remembered telling him.
"Always," he said.
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