Robert Lynch remembered

He was a Marine from Louisville who often put others before himself, and that's what Lance Corporal Robert A. Lynch was no doubt doing when he was killed Tuesday on a combat mission in Iraq's Diyala province. Now friends of 20-year-old Lance Corporal Robert Alan Lynch are remembering the life of a classmate they simple came to know as "Jax." WAVE 3's Shayla Reaves has more on the Marine who dreamed of doing more than serving his country.

Friends say Lance Corporal Robert Alan Lynch was small in stature but big at heart, and always wanted to do more than serve his country.

"He was a multi-tasker, he was never doing just one thing," former Seneca High School classmate Dana Chesser said.

As a student, Lynch would spend a lot of time working on his talents. The 2005 graduate always dreamed of being an entertainer and even gave himself a stage name.

"A lot of people would call him Jax," said former Seneca High School classmate Bianca Reid. "He wanted to be an actor and that was his actor name."

Reid says it wasn't unusual to find Lynch sitting in the back of their ROTC class, writing songs and poems in his notebook. Despite his love for the arts, it was his talent as a leader that stuck out to those who knew him best -- the 2005 Seneca High School Junior ROTC students.

"He was great, he was very encouraging to the people in our class," Reid said of her classmate. "Whenever we would run and people would fall behind, he'd always be the one to spring back and go get them."

Classmate Dana Chesser said it wasn't uncommon for Lynch to put others before himself. She says he was a very innocent guy who did not drink or do drugs and he always enjoyed making people laugh.

"When we'd lose a drill meet and he didn't get to go on it, he'd be like 'it's OK guys, you all did good,'" Chesser recalled. "He'd be right there with us, feeling our pain no matter what we were going through.

Helping others is something Lynch did until the day he died. He volunteered to go on the combat mission that left himself and two others dead in Iraq.

"He never let anyone fall behind, and that's what Marine Corps is about," Chesser said. "It's never leaving anybody behind, always bringing them home."

From WAVE 3

Related Link:
Robert A. Lynch dies 'while conducting combat operations'