Edwardo J. Lopez killed in combat

Family members Sunday remembered a Marine from Aurora killed last week in Iraq as a fan of war movies and paintball games, an outgoing man who was dedicated to his country.

Lance Cpl. Edwardo Lopez Jr., 21, was killed by gunfire early Thursday morning in western Iraq, family members said.

"I'm just thinking that it's going to be hard for me to keep going in life," his mother, Martha, said. "He was my right hand."

Edwardo Lopez loved cooking and could make his own tortillas. His mother described him as someone who watched out for neighbors--like the time one couldn't get her front door locked late one night and he went over to help.

His interest in the military dates to childhood, family members said.

"He always liked guns and tanks and armies," said his brother, Alex, 20. "When it would snow, we always built forts and pretended like we were in a war."

Lopez was fun to be around and was often the life of the party, his family said.

"He loved going out," his brother said. "He loved making people laugh. He was very outgoing, a very outgoing person."

Lopez's cousin, Seferino Alonzo III, remembered the way the Marine liked to joke.

"He said he didn't need a girlfriend," Alonzo recalled. "He said his guns were his girlfriend."

Alonzo said Lopez, a 2003 graduate of East Aurora High School, seemed cut out for the Marines.

"He wanted to do something different," Alonzo said. "He didn't want to go to college. A lot of people who were in the Marines were telling him about how it is to go into the military."

Alonzo added, "He was looking forward to going a lot of places they were going to send him. He just wanted to explore what was out there, and he wanted to do what he loved best and what he was proud of."

Lopez previously saw combat in Afghanistan. He spent a few days at home over Labor Day weekend and shipped out to Iraq on Sept. 8. His brother said the deployment to Iraq felt more foreboding than Afghanistan.

"We did feel something was going to happen," Alex Lopez said. "And my brother did too. He cried, and he hugged me with a passion."

Although he was only a year younger, Alex Lopez said that his older brother always looked out for him.

"Every time someone would mess with me, he would look out for me," he said.

There was a time when the younger brother wanted to follow his sibling into military service.

"I was so proud of him," he recalled. "He gave me his dog tags. Something told me I couldn't do it because I didn't have the courage. He was brave."

The Marines haven't explained to the family the exact circumstances of his death, but Alex Lopez imagines his brother taking the lead in a dangerous situation--a position he often relished.

"He was always a risk-taker," Alex Lopez said. "If he did something, he did it because he felt it was right. Whatever he did, I'm still proud of him."

Martha Lopez talked to her son by phone Oct. 15, when he called to thank her for the box filled with Gummy Bears, Twizzlers and other desert warfare necessities.

He told her he was going on a mission and wouldn't be in touch for about three weeks.

"You pray for me, Mommy," he told her. "And tell everyone I love them very much."

Lopez is also survived by his father, Eduardo Lopez.

From the Chicago Tribune