BEAVER DAM, Wis. - A third-generation serviceman who promised to make his father proud by following in his footsteps died after he jumped into an Iraqi canal to rescue victims of a helicopter crash, his family said.
Marine Infantry Sgt. Kirk Straseskie, 23, died Monday after he tried to rescue the crew of a Sea-Knight helicopter that went down into a canal shortly after takeoff in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad. Four Marines on the helicopter were killed.
"We told him not to be a hero," said his grandmother, Jan Helmer. "But that was Kirk."
Capt. Joe Kloppel, a Marine Corps spokesman at the Pentagon, said officials had not released names of the Marines who died. The cause of the crash was under investigation, but the military said it appeared to be an accident.
Straseskie graduated from Beaver Dam High School in 1998 and immediately joined the Marines, said his father, John Straseskie, 51. He said both he and his father had served in the U.S. Army, and Kirk wanted to do the same by joining the military. His son chose the Marines because he "was a fighter," he said.
"He told me he was going to match my ribbons," said John Straseskie. "He matched them and more."
Kirk was the youngest of four brothers. His older brother, Ryan, also serves in the military as a lieutenant in the Army National Guard's 724th Engineer Battalion, which was deployed to the Middle East region earlier this month.
Mary Schreiber, Ryan and Kirk's aunt, said no one in the family knew Ryan's location, but he had been told of his brother's death and was on his way home.
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