Jonathan Grant

Tuesday, May 17 2005 @ 08:01 AM EDT

Alamogordo Daily News -- POJOAQUE, N.M. (AP) — A Marine from Pojoaque was killed in Iraq when an explosive device detonated near a vehicle he was riding in, his family said.

The grandmother of Lance Cpl. Jonathan Grant, 23, said she was notified Friday that he died in an explosion Wednesday.

"I didn't expect this because he said he was coming home soon," said Margie Warner, 83, Grant's grandmother who raised him since he was an infant.
"Now I understand because now he's coming home."

The U.S. Department of Defense has confirmed the deaths of six Marines in one squad when the troop transporter they were riding in hit a bomb while working as part of Operation Matador in Karabilah, but it hadn’t released all of their identities as of early Monday.

Family members said Grant worked in radio communications.

Grant leaves behind a fiancee, a 5-year-old daughter and 17-month-old son.

Grant joined the Marines in 2003. He had been in Iraq since January.

Warner said military officials told her the vehicle Grant was riding in melted to the ground.

‘‘I don’t want to see him in my dreams like that,’’ she said. ‘‘I need some more explanation before I see him.’’

Eva Maestas, Grant’s fiancee and the mother of his children, said the two have been together seven years. She said they planned to be married when he returned in October.

‘‘He had a great sense of humor. He loved to work out, play sports and was really into low riders,’’ she said. ‘‘He wanted to get a ’63 Impala and fix it up.’’

Maestas said she got pregnant with their first child while still in high school. She said Grant dropped out to care for the child and allow her to graduate.
Grant got his GED in 2000, Maestas said.

Grant will be buried in the Santa Fe National Cemetery, where his uncle — who was declared missing in action in Vietnam in 1968 — has a headstone, family members said.

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