The Brother Who Didn't Come Home

By MICHAEL DUFFY, Brian Bennett, Mark Kukis

Age 20. Lance corporal, U.S. Marine Corps. 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force

Nonhostile accident, Anbar province

Leaving home in Rocky River, Ohio, was hard for Daniel Scherry. His mother and two sisters were in tears when his Marine Corps recruiter, Staff Sergeant Eric Evans, went to pick him up for basic training in the spring of 2006. Soon Scherry was crying too. "His sisters were his world," says Evans. Their names, Kacie and Lauren, were tattooed on the inside of his arms. To console Scherry, Evans told the young Marine the recruiter would be there for the sisters while he was away.

Scherry's mother Marianne had tried to talk him out of joining the Marines, at least until he finished college. In 2004, when the Marines were assaulting Fallujah and suffering heavy casualties, she showed the newspaper to her only son. Look, she said, they are so young--just 19 and 20--and they're dying. But Scherry told his mother that the Marines who died there must have been proud to do so for their country. "He looked at the Marines as being the best, and that's what he wanted to be--the best," says Marianne. "He knew it was the hardest boot camp. He knew it was the toughest training. That's what he wanted. He wanted to push himself."

Scherry's mentor in the Marines was Evans, who felt closer to Scherry than to other recruits he had signed up. Scherry reminded Evans of himself as an eager young recruit looking to become an infantryman. Evans talked with Scherry for a long time that first night, assuring him he was embarking on a noble calling. And Evans stayed in touch with Scherry as he went through training, offering congratulations when Scherry became a mortarman, the same job Evans held when he first joined the Marine Corps.

Scherry was deployed to Anbar province in March 2007. He died after only about a month there. The Marines who broke the news to his mother said there had been an accident. Scherry had been riding in the turret of a humvee when he reached to get a low-hanging wire out of the way. Electric current killed him.

In the days after Scherry's death, Marianne asked the Marines who had come to her house if they could please send Evans, who had never helped a family grieve before. Scherry is the first of Evans' recruits to die in Iraq. "You find yourself lying awake at night looking for some magical words that can help the family ease their pain, and there are no magical words to be had," says Evans. "You can't bring their son back for them."