Tuesday, May 01 2007 @ 08:01 AM EDT
Contributed by: tomw
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 Burlington Free Press -- Marine Cpl. Christopher DeGiovine, 25, of Essex Junction, was killed Thursday, just three weeks after joining his battalion in Iraq.
DeGiovine, a corporal attached with the 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, died when his assault vehicle ran over a roadside bomb in the volatile Al Anbar province. He is the 30th service member with ties to Vermont to have died in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since March 2003.
 DeGiovine is one of six Marines killed since Thursday in Al Anbar, a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, according to the Department of Defense.
The news of his death shocked and saddened the Essex community, where he was known for his sense of humor, politeness, athleticism and interest in law enforcement.
"He had the whole world ahead of him," said Peter Gustafson, who taught DeGiovine in sixth-grade social studies at Albert D. Lawton School. Gustafson's son attended day care with DeGiovine when the boys were 3.
Local connections
DeGiovine grew up in Essex Junction and attended Essex High School, where he played soccer and lacrosse and graduated in 2000. In 2005 he graduated from Champlain College in Burlington, where he majored in criminal justice.
During the summers, he worked for the Essex Police Department on the bike patrol and became a familiar face in town.
"A lot of kids from Essex will miss him," Gustafson said. "They'll be just as shocked as I am."
DeGiovine then headed to Denver, according to his father, Ray DeGiovine. He tried unsuccessfully to get a job with the police force there and grew impatient, his father said.
"He's always been interested in the military," Ray DeGiovine said. "He decided to join the Marines. He was a little bit ticked off with what happened on 9/11."
Christopher DeGiovine married an Essex woman, Rachel Young, the day after Thanksgiving in 2005, and joined the Marines on Dec. 5, 2005, his father said. DeGiovine went to boot camp, and then went to Military Occupational Specialty training, where he specialized on the assault amphibian vehicle -- a very large vehicle weighing 50,000 pounds, and one in which no American soldiers were fatally injured in the war in Iraq, his father said. DeGiovine was stationed in Camp Lejeune, N.C. He arrived in Iraq on April 6 or 7, and was based in Fallujah, his father said.
The attack
DeGiovine was patrolling Thursday in the assault amphibian vehicle and was in the lead vehicle of a convoy.
"What I was told was that they used an existing water main that went across the road," Ray DeGiovine said. "They disconnected the water, filled the thing with explosives.... They detonated the thing while (the vehicle) was going across this pipe that was in the road."
The explosion flipped the vehicle, killing the Marine, Ray DeGiovine said.
'Good guy'
Christopher DeGiovine will be remembered in his hometown as an "all-around great kid."
"That sounds like a cliche, but it's not," said Joe Gonillo, who teaches English at Essex High and coached DeGiovine on an unbeaten junior varsity soccer team. "He was happy, smiling, active -- I never really saw him down."
"He had a great sense of humor; never, ever lost his temper with anybody," said his father. "He also was a top marksman in boot camp, he shot expert in boot camp.
"He was a pretty good guy."
Gustafson said he has known DeGiovine for 22 years, as a "wonderful young man."
"He got along with everybody. He was one of those eighth-graders who danced with the sixth-graders at the dance. I keep picturing him as a 3-year-old playing on the hill with my son."
Gonillo said DeGiovine worked with him in the summers at Maple Street Recreation Center and remembers him talk about possibly serving in the military one day.
"He was extremely mature for his age," Gonillo said. "He had a plan, knew what he wanted."
Ray DeGiovine said the news of his son's death came as a "terrible shock."
"He loved to play golf," DeGiovine said. "He loved to be with his little dog, Lucy." |
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I would like to say thank you for your service and sacrifice for our Country. And to your family and loved ones, I wish to extend my deepest sympathy.
Semper Fi Devil Dog!