Washington Post  —  Jonathan Yale was close to his mother, a single parent who gave birth to him when she was only 17. And he was the kind of guy who liked to make people happy, she said.

"He was the class clown, even when he wasn't at school," his mother, Rebecca Yale, said yesterday. "But he also didn't mind sitting home with his momma to watch a chick flick with a box of Kleenex between us. He was the best boy you could ask for."

Yale, a 21-year-old corporal from Burkeville, Va., was one of two Marines who died Tuesday in Iraq of wounds suffered in combat operations in Anbar province, the Department of Defense said yesterday.

Yale, who was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, was scheduled to come home soon, his mother said.

Lance Cpl. Jordan C. Haerter, 19, of Sag Harbor, N.Y., also died Tuesday, the Defense Department said.

Yale grew up in rural Meherrin, one of those "teeny tiny little Virginia towns where if you sneeze, you miss it," Rebecca Yale said.

When he was little, Yale loved to hang out with his granddad "in the bush and the thicket," his grandfather, William Sydnor Sr., said. "I used to call him 'Wild Man.' No matter how much he would get scratched up in the woods, he always wanted to go again next time . . . and he was only 5 or 6 then."

Sydnor said his son, Yale's father, lived with the boy off and on while he was growing up.

Yale became an "awesome skateboarder" and "one of the top paintball players" in the area, according to his mother. She said he was setting up a Web site for a paintball team he had founded.

Yale and his little sister, Tammy, had signed up to play in a paintball tournament in August, said Rebecca Yale, 38. Because he had missed Tammy's 16th birthday while serving in Iraq, he made plans to take her to Busch Gardens for a special celebration when he got home.

"They had lots of plans," his mother said. "John loved his family and his friends."

Rebecca Yale said her son, who left for Iraq on Oct. 31, was due home in less than a month.

Mother and son were so close that when he got stationed at Camp Lejeune almost two years ago, she and his sister moved to North Carolina from Virginia to be closer to him.

"He wanted his mom and his sister down here with him so he would have some family, so that's what we did," Rebecca Yale said yesterday from her home in North Carolina.

A neighbor in Virginia, Kenny Ellis, said Yale was a good son, always "helping his momma."

"He helped her pay the rent, buy a car," Ellis said. "They were right close, and he was a good boy."

Yale graduated from Prince Edward County High School in 2006, his mother said. He was a member of the school robotics and drama clubs. He was a thespian who liked to put on his own plays.

"He could've gone to New York to do his own Broadway show," Rebecca Yale said.

Sydnor said that before shipping out to Iraq, Yale came home to Virginia to say goodbye to friends and family.

"I told him I didn't want him to go because he was young and he didn't know what he was getting into," Sydnor said. "I tried to talk him out of it, but that's what he wanted. And I'm proud of him for going into the service."