Maine woman: Fallen Marine son ‘died for all’

PORT CLYDE – U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Brian Kennedy, who died in last week’s helicopter crash in Kuwait, has a proud family waiting for his return home for burial.

“As a mother, something of you is gone when your child leaves the earth,” Melissa Derbyshire said Saturday as she stood on the porch of her waterfront home overlooking Port Clyde Harbor. “I’m not the only one.”

Kennedy, 25, was one of four U.S. Marines and eight British Marines killed when their helicopter went down nine miles from the Iraqi border at about 7:30 p.m. EST Thursday – Friday morning in Kuwait.

First word of Kennedy’s death came from his sister early Friday when she called her mother in Port Clyde. A few hours later, three U.S. Marines knocked on the door of Derbyshire’s home. The Marines spent about an hour with Derbyshire and her husband, John, expressing condolences.

The Derbyshires said they support the war in Iraq and Kennedy’s sacrifice to protect democracy and freedom. “I believe we don’t know all the facts,” Melissa Derbyshire said of the war in Iraq, adding that she believes Americans must trust their leaders in Washington.

A week before Kennedy departed for the Persian Gulf, the Derbyshires joined him in San Diego, where he was stationed at Camp Pendleton. That was Super Bowl weekend.

Before Kennedy left, mother and son had talked about the potential consequences of war. Her son talked about the flag that might drape his casket, but said he would do his best to return home.

They last spoke on Tuesday.

“I believed he would come back, as a mother does,” Melissa Derbyshire said Saturday.

As the couple spoke with reporters, a red and gold Marine Corps flag was flapping in the breeze.

“He died for all of us,” she said.

The Marine’s father, Mark Kennedy, lives in Houston; his sister, Gretchen, 28, and her husband, Brett, live in Scottsdale, Ariz. He and his sister were best friends, according to their mother.

After graduating from Glenbrook South High School in Glenville, Ill., Kennedy attended Purdue University in Indiana and Texas Tech University for one year each. He had been studying engineering.

Then he signed up for a six-year enlistment with the Marines.

Kennedy became a Marine because he thought he could do the best job at that, his mother said. He finished boot camp on June 3, 1999.

Although Kennedy planned to get out of the military in 18 months to return to college, he believed in what he was doing for his country and knew the risks, his mother said.

Kennedy loved Maine.

He had visited Port Clyde three times since his mother and stepfather moved to their modest waterfront home five years ago. The house had been in John Derbyshire’s family since the 1930s. Port Clyde is a village located at the tip of the St. George peninsula.

“This man loved living and life itself,” John Derbyshire said. “His greatest pleasures were cooking, eating lobster and mussels, his friends, lacrosse, rock climbing and doing his best at any task he was given to do – just as he did his job as a Marine crew chief aboard the CH-46 helicopter,” he said,

“It wasn’t what he wanted to do – he’d rather kick back in his Adirondack chair and flip-flops. But, it was his job to do and by God he did it the best he could,” John Derbyshire said.

“He laughed all the time he was here,” his mother said. His last visit to Maine was this past fall, when he brought a Marine buddy home with him.

When and where Cpl. Brian Kennedy will be returned home for burial was still undecided during the weekend.

“Brian as a boy and as a man has always had an open heart,” his stepfather said, telling a story of the time his stepson raised more than $2,500 for a high school friend who was critically injured in a boating accident and of times when he would be there when his mother needed him.

Kennedy will be remembered for that and his friendly laughter, his mother said. “He was a sensitive boy.

“I’m very, very, very proud of him,” she said. “He’s not the only one. We should be proud of these guys.”