Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

Home › News › Local News

Soldier with desire to protect weighed joining police

Dick Foster, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 2, 2007 at midnight

Text size  

More Local News

More stories »

On May 1, 2003, Pfc. Jesse Givens, of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, became the first Fort Carson soldier killed in Iraq. He drowned when a riverbank collapse sent his tank into the Euphrates River in Habbaniyah.

"Any loss of life is tragic, and the 200th is an unhappy occasion. But it's part of the global war on terror," said Fort Carson spokeswoman Karen Linne.

The 2nd Brigade, now in its second deployment, has been hit hardest, with 95 killed - 68 in its first tour from September 2004 to June 2005.

Jay E. Martin liked the military since he was a boy and had dreams of becoming a pilot.

"He loved dinosaurs when he was little and wanted to be a paleontologist. But then his father started taking him to air shows, and he got interested in airplanes," said his aunt, Lori Martin-Graham.

Martin's mother died when he was 10, and he was reared by his father and a large extended family, including Martin-Graham, who described herself as the boy's "second mother."

Martin was a typical child of his age.

He was a skateboarder and loved video games, especially baseball and car racing. He was a fast runner and a member of his Forest Park High School track team.

But he was serious about his studies and pursuits.

Martin joined ROTC in high school to help prepare for becoming a pilot and went to Embry-Riddle Aviation University for a year before his eyesight disqualified him for flying.

He joined the Army and served in Bosnia for a year. He was a recruiter in California when the -Army transferred him to Fort Carson last summer for deployment to Iraq.

Martin had been in the Army nine years and was exploring options outside the service when his enlistment was up.

He was considering applying to the Los Angeles Police Department.

"Jay's life was to protect and serve," Martin-Graham said. "He was protecting and serving his country in the Army, and he wanted to protect and serve in the police department."

Martin occasionally spoke to his father by phone from Iraq.

In his last message home, he said he was all right but that there were a lot of explosions.