just received this email. approx the 10th one in the past year.<br /><br />Ladies and Gentlemen,<br /><br />It is with deep sadness that I inform you of the untimely death of<br />2ndLt J.P. Blecksmith, USNA '03 graduate and varsity football player. <br />He was killed in Fallujah last Thursday. A memorial service is<br />scheduled for noon on Tue 23 Nov 04 in the main Chapel. More<br />information on the service will be sent at a later date. A news article<br />about his life follows:<br /><br />v/r<br />Major Ian Facey, Sr.<br /><br /><br />PASADENA STAR-NEWS NOVEMBER 13, 2004<br />San Marino Marine, 24, killed in action in Iraq <br />By Gretchen Hoffman, Staff Writer <br />SAN MARINO -- A San Marino man and 1999 Flintridge Preparatory School<br />graduate has been killed in action in Al Anbar Province, two months<br />after he was deployed to Iraq. <br />Second Lt. James P. Blecksmith, or JP to everyone who knew him, was<br />killed Thursday by enemy action in the province that includes the city<br />of Fallujah. He was 24. <br />Family members believe he was hit by a sniper's bullet just outside the<br />left shoulder of his flack jacket, and either the bullet or a shard of<br />bone punctured his heart. <br />Blecksmith had soldiering in his blood. His father, longtime San Marino<br />resident Ed Blecksmith, was in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War.<br />As a boy, Blecksmith would dig out his father's old jungle utilities,<br />dress himself for battle and dig a hole in a vacant lot next door to the<br />home they lived in in Seattle for about five years. <br />"He'd dig a hole and play soldier,' his father said. "(But) I never<br />pushed him to be a Marine.' <br />JP Blecksmith was the youngest of three children. He played football at<br />Flintridge Prep - quarterback - and ran track, making it to the CIF<br />finals in about 10 events during high school, his father said. <br />He was a peer counselor at Flintridge Prep and it wasn't uncommon for<br />him to take younger students under his wing, even if it was just to toss<br />a football around with them, his father said. <br />Blecksmith was athletic and intelligent, with good SAT scores, and he<br />was recruited by the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., his<br />father said. There, he continued his football career, playing wide<br />receiver for the Navy Midshipmen. <br />"He did everything that a father could ever want or ask of a son,' Ed<br />Blecksmith said. <br />JP Blecksmith was 6-foot-3, and about 220 pounds after he went into the<br />Marines. His father described him as compassionate, a "good-looking<br />kid,' with a good sense of humor. <br />"He always had time for people,' Ed Blecksmith said. "He was a tough<br />kid, to do what he did, but he also had a loving side. He knew when to<br />be a tough guy and when to be a real gentleman.' <br />JP Blecksmith was commissioned as an officer in May 2003 and started<br />his training at the Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Virginia. He returned<br />to California, and to Camp Pendleton, this spring. <br />After four more months of training, he was deployed to Iraq on Sept.<br />10. His family was notified Thursday night - Veterans Day - that he had<br />been killed. <br />"It was devastating,' Blecksmith said. "I can't describe the emptiness<br />I feel, the hurt I feel, the pain I feel, as does my wife.' <br />The family last spoke to him by phone two weeks ago and by e-mail<br />shortly thereafter. <br />"I think he was a little pensive and that's understandable,' Ed<br />Blecksmith said. "He'd been in firefights but never heavy combat.' <br />His father said hundreds of people have stopped by the family's San<br />Marino home since Thursday. <br />"I think the thing I'll miss most is his antics,' his father said,<br />referring to last Christmas, when JP came downstairs dressed as Saddam<br />Hussein with pieces of an old Halloween wig stuck to his face. "He loved<br />doing silly things.' <br />He is survived by his parents, Pam and Ed; sister, Christina, 27; and<br />brother, Alex, 25. Funeral services are being arranged.
