Mark C. Gelina killed in 'non-hostile incident'

A Marine from Moberly who is a University of Missouri-Columbia graduate has died in Iraq.

Mark C. Gelina, a 33-year-old second lieutenant, died Saturday in a "non-hostile incident," according to a Department of Defense news release.

Capt. John Basil Read III, the commanding officer at the MU Naval ROTC, said Gelina died when he fell from a roof in al-Anbar province, Iraq, while directing the placement of a gun.

"They obviously felt that they needed some high cover," Read said. "We have very sketchy details at this point."

Gelina was one of Read’s students in a leadership and ethics course at MU.

He graduated in May 2005 with a degree in industrial engineering. Read today described the fallen Marine as a role model.

"I think that you would consider him an excellent example of everything you would want in a Marine Corps officer," Read said. "It’s a terrible loss."

Teresa Coonce echoed her son’s former commander.

"He was a great guy," Coonce, 51, said of her son this morning from her Moberly home. "He got along with almost everybody, knew very few people he didn’t get along with."

A 1991 graduate of Moberly Senior High School, Gelina would have celebrated his ninth wedding anniversary with Stacey Gelina in December.

The couple has three children, ages 1½ to 10 years old.

Coonce said her son joined the Marines in March 1996 at the urging of one of his four brothers. Gelina also is survived by a sister.

"I think he was trying to find something that meant a little more to him," Coonce said of her son’s enlistment. "He had a job and everything like that there, but he didn’t seem to be going anywhere fast."

Coonce said the Marines lived up to Gelina’s expectations. He quickly made a name for himself and joined the Marine Enlisted Commissioning Education Program, which allowed him to attend MU.

"They just really thought a lot of him," Coonce said of her son’s superiors. "He was a good leader."

After graduation, Gelina attended basic training at Quantico, Va., and was assigned to 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, based in Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Gelina deployed to Iraq in September and described his assigned area to his mother as less "busy" than the areas most people were familiar with.

"I think he might have said that just to keep us from worrying," Coonce said.

"He wanted to make a difference over there. He thought with the training he had from the Marines and everything, he could," she said.

The Marine’s body is in the United States but has not been released to his family, his mother said. When it is, arrangements will be made in Moberly.

Although she worried some, a military family history kept Coonce from panicking when Gelina was deployed. Coonce’s father fought in World War II, and her brother fought in Vietnam. Both came home.

"I just kind of figured that he would, too," she said.

From the Columbia Tribune