WORD OF FIRST U.S. LOSSES JOLTS MARINE COMMUNITY

Within 12 hours yesterday, six San Diego County-based Marines became the nation’s first fatalities in the war against Iraq, making real the greatest fears of local military families.

Two Marine infantrymen were killed in firefights with enemy troops in Iraq, and the others died in a helicopter accident yesterday (Iraq time) in northern Kuwait near the Iraqi border. All were attached to the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

The loss hit hard at the Marine base, which has sent the majority of its 45,000-person force to the Persian Gulf region.

“We’ve lost some of our family,” said Maj. Curtis Hill, base spokesman. “We honor their memory and are confident that the cause in which they fought is just, and the world is a safer place for their sacrifice, dedication and service.”

Killed were the helicopter’s pilots, Maj. Jay Thomas Aubin, 36, and Capt. Ryan Anthony Beaupre, 30; the crew chief, Staff Sgt. Kendall Damon Watersbey, 29; and the crew’s mechanic, Cpl. Brian Matthew Kennedy, 25.

The Pentagon didn’t release the names of the two other Marines yesterday.

Flying in the early morning darkness, the helicopter crew was transporting eight British Marines in a CH-46E Sea Knight. The Vietnam-era troop helicopter apparently crashed in the Kuwaiti desert just south of the Iraq border. Enemy fire was not suspected, Pentagon officials said. Also in the early morning, a 1st Marine Division infantryman was killed while leading his platoon in a fight to secure an oil pumping station in southern Iraq, defense officials said.

The Marine’s unit had engaged a platoon of Iraqi infantry. The wounded Marine was taken by helicopter to a surgical center in Kuwait but could not be saved, officials said.

In the afternoon, another Marine was killed in action against enemy forces near the southern Iraqi port town of Umm Qasr, Pentagon officials said.

Camp Pendleton Marines were among the first troops to charge into southern Iraq as the ground war began yesterday in the pre-dawn hours Iraq time, according to reports.

Marine engineers punched through sand berms marking the Iraqi border and cleared minefields, allowing the 1st Marine Division to race through.

By yesterday afternoon Pacific time, the Marines had seized the town of Safwan in southern Iraq and Umm Qasr.