Perspective: After 3rd tour, hard to let go

Though they never met, Martinez will attend the funeral for Fernando Tamayo (pictured)

Like a man three times his age, Jaime Martinez scans the newspaper each morning to see if someone he knows has died.

Martinez served his country on three violent tours in Iraq. He made many friends who are still overseas, as is an even larger list of acquaintances with whom he shared a bond of brotherhood forged amid bullets and bombs.

Last week, after taking his morning run, Martinez, 23, trained his eyes on the headlines in the newspaper. That's when he saw that a lance corporal from Fontana - who served in the same 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment out of Twentynine Palms - was the latest victim in the war in Iraq.

Martinez did not recognize the name - keep in mind that there are about 1,000 Marines in the battalion. But as he read how 19-year-old Lance Cpl. Fernando S. Tamayo died in a roadside bombing Dec. 21, Martinez was struck by a wave of emotion.

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