MYSanAntonio.com -- When Jonathan Flores returned to Jay High School, his alma mater, he talked to students in the Junior ROTC.

Flores, who had spiked his hair and had green highlights in it at Jay, where he graduated a year ago, came to school last October with a shaven head and a tan uniform, per Marine regulations.

Without an instructor present, he told students what basic training was like and what he hoped to do with his career.

No one could have known it would be his last return visit.

Flores, 18, was killed Tuesday in Iraq by a roadside bomb near Fallujah, said retired Air Force Col. Dennis LeVan, one of Flores' ROTC instructors at Jay.

“I not only lost a great high school student at a time when he had so much of his life to live,” he said. “We also lost a great Marine.”

Aside from summer school students and some teachers, the Jay campus on the far West Side was empty Wednesday. As e-mails about Flores' death circulated, a hollow feeling settled over the faculty, LeVan said.

“Everyone in the ROTC remembered him and was very moved that they lost him in Iraq,” he said. “This couldn't have happened at a worse time, for recognizing this loss. Everyone's gone. I'm about to leave for Albuquerque.”

Flores was extremely polite and always upbeat, LeVan said. As a senior, he helped collect canned food and picked up trash by the highway as part of the ROTC's community service projects.

“He talked about wanting to be a Marine, so he got to do what he wanted,” LeVan said. “Still, this hits us very hard.”

Aside from his parents, who live in San Antonio, Flores also leaves two younger twin brothers who are in the ROTC program at Jay and will be sophomores in the fall, LeVan said.

He said Flores was a private first class when he sent him an e-mail from Iraq a few months ago.

“The fact that he sent me that e-mail gives me great pride.”

Flores, who would have turned 19 in August, was the 11th San Antonian killed in action in Gulf War II and the third Jay graduate to die in the war on terrorism.

Army Pfc. Anthony Scott Miller, 19, was killed by enemy fire in Iraq on April 7, 2003. Lt. Col. Albert E. Smart, 41, died May 28, from a noncombat-related illness while serving in Afghanistan.

LeVan said the school will dedicate a wall to Jay graduates now serving in the military, with a special area set aside for the ones who died.

“I just remember what a great kid he was,” he said of Flores.