FORMER SHIPMATE: ON THE FITZGERALD YOU’RE ALL FAMILY
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lia, Japan and Korea.
Tan Huynh turned 25 on June 16, shortly before the collision that cost him his life.
“Wishing him a happy birthday,” Lan Huynh said, “was the last thing we said to him.”
In recent years, the military has tried to draw in immigrants with programs that allow enlistees to become citizens after basic training, attracting about 5,000 takers each year, according to the Defense Department. One out of every 13 sailors is foreign born, the highest proportion in any military branch, according to the Navy. The service regularly holds citizenship ceremonies aboard ships.
At the same time, the proportion of racial and ethnic minorities in the military, mirroring the nation as a whole, has surged to 40 percent — nearly twice what it was 20 years ago.
Former sailors from the destroyer said the diverse ranks shared a common cause.
“You are crammed in with all sorts of cultures on the ship,” said Corey Bell, 23, of Wynne, Ark., who served on the destroyer with six of the sailors who died. “But when you are on the Fitzgerald, you’re family. There was no racism or nothing.”
The relatives of Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class Noe Hernandez of Weslaco, Texas, whose family immigrated from Central America, followed his Navy travels around the world from their small town in the southern tip of Texas. Hernandez, 26, was stationed first in Italy, then in California, then in Japan.
“We just felt so proud that one of our own was living this life,” his cousin Aly Hernandez-singer said. She added, “To me, he represents — I’ll be honest, I have to say it — what Trump says we are not. He represents the good side of the Latino community. He was a proud American. He was a good citizen, and he was Latino and proud of his roots.”
Monday was supposed to be the birthday celebration for the brother of Fire Controlman 2nd Class Carlos Sibayan, 23. Instead, his mother, Carmen, said she was preparing for a Mass at her home in Chula Vista, outside San Diego.
Carmen Sibayan said that her son was born in the Philippines and that the family left when he was 4 to join his father, who served in the U.S. military. Friends describe Sibayan as an outgoing sailor who regularly dominated informal tournaments of the video game Super Smash Bros. that were held on the destroyer.
“He helps people,” she said. “He loves to help everybody. He’s a very good kid. He’s a good big brother.”
Carmen Sibayan said that even though her son was a citizen, she had seen postings on Facebook denigrating him and his death.
“My son died because he was protecting their ass,” he said. “People are saying he is a Filipino, that he’s not a hero. Things like that. I hate it. I hate it. I have to stop looking at Facebook. They need to stop posting things that are not right.”
Ryan Canate said he attended third grade with Sibayan on a military base in Japan, and reconnected with his old friend on Facebook about five years ago.
“Even back then he was very sure he wanted to be in the Navy and serve our country,” Canate said. “As military brats, we are taught at an early age that our parents are deployed and something can happen to them,” he said. “But to learn that happened to him? He was 23 years old.”
Yeoman 3rd Class Shingo Douglass, 25, of Oceanside, Calif., was the son of an American Marine father and a Japanese mother. Like many on the destroyer, he liked to listen to metal songs and play video games during his downtime.
While serving as a boatswain’s mate with Bell, he painted vast portions of the now crippled destroyer, and at first, he said, they were merely bound by shared drudgery. “The day we became friends, we pulled into port in Japan and I heard him talking on his cellphone in Japanese,” Bell said. “After that he kind of became our tour guide.”
Douglass would translate kanji and take friends to hole-inthe-wall concert venues where they could see their favorite American metal bands touring Japan.
“He was a stand-up guy, a hard worker and a great friend,” Bell said.
Also killed were Gary Rehm Jr., 37, of Elyria, Ohio, who followed in the footsteps of his World War II veteran grandfather by joining the Navy, and was just months from retirement, and Dakota Rigsby, 19, of Palmyra, Va., who before joining the Navy volunteered for his local fire department alongside his mother.
Personnel Specialist 1st Class Xavier Martin, 24, of Halethorpe, Md., whom friends described as kind and mature for his age, also had an international heritage. He was the son of a black father from Detroit and a white mother from France, according to his friend, Cristina Dunstan.
“He was raised by his father, who was his best friend,” she said. “They talked almost every day on the phone.”
Martin emulated his father in everything he did, including exercising daily and joining the Navy, she said. He loved working on cars, and was constantly souping up his Mazda. Whenever he made a new modification, he would call his father to share, she said.
Dunstan began to cry as she described the moment Martin’s father realized he had missed a call from his son minutes before the deadly crash.
On Monday, she said his father, Darrold Martin, was surrounded by family and deeply sad.
“It’s very hard,” Martin told a Baltimore television station shortly after learning of his son’s death. “He’s my only child; he’s all I have.”