Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Tonopah mourns loss of Marine

Soldier is Nevada's first to be killed in U.S.-led Iraq war

In this October 2001 photo provided by Wade Lieseke, Fred Pokorney poses with his wife, Chelle, and their 2-year-old daughter, Taylor.

TONOPAH -- If the U.S. Marines were looking for a Marine to show off to the rest of the world, 2nd Lt. Fred Pokorney could have been that man, said people in this small central Nevada town where he went to high school and still has many friends.

"That's the best thing you could say about Fred," said Wade Lieseke, who served as sheriff of Nye County for 12 years and was the man Pokorney considered his father. "He had character. He had morals. He had integrity. He was the epitome of what a Marine should be."

Pokorney, 31, was killed in battle Sunday when a group of Iraqis feigned surrender and instead shot a group of Marines dead. He was Nevada's first casualty in the war against Iraq.

"Anyone that was blessed by knowing Fred has suffered an indescribable loss. We all hurt deeply," the family said in a statement issued in Jacksonville, N.C., where his wife, Carolyn Rochelle, and 2-year-old daughter, Taylor, live.

Officially, the Marine Corps will say only that they are still investigating the Sunday encounter that left Pokorney and at least eight other Marines dead in the vicinity of An Nasiriyah, Iraq.

"We just don't have the information to say what happened," Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens said in a telephone interview Tuesday from the Marines' forward command at Camp As Sayliyah, near Doha, Qatar.

But after the battle Sunday it was widely reported that the Marines at An Nasiriyah were killed when an Iraqi unit holding a white flag opened fire as U.S. forces approached.

Pokorney's family is making arrangements to bury him in Arlington National Cemetery.

"I don't know what his family's going to do," Lieseke said. "He was just their rock."

Pokorney's wife, known as Chelle, was not talking to reporters Tuesday. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., spoke to her.

"You can tell that she was very proud of him and that he was going to Iraq to make the world safer," Berkley said. "He was a good husband and good father. She obviously had deep love and affection for him."

Lieseke said Pokorney met Chelle while he was stationed in Washington state a few years ago. They married about four years ago, he said.

Pokorney enlisted in the Marine Corps in February 1993 and was promoted in March 2001 to a command field artillery officer, according to Marine Corps spokesman Michael Giannetti. He was assigned to the Headquarters Battery, 1st Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade. The unit left in January from Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Lieseke, 52, said he met Pokorney about 15 years ago, when the teenager was dating Lieseke's daughter. Pokorney was living with an aunt in Tonopah because, Lieseke said, his mother had died and he did not want to live with his biological father in California.

But Pokorney's aunt died when he was about 17 years old, Lieseke said, and Lieseke and his wife, Suzy, took him in.

"He stayed here with us," Lieseke said during an interview Tuesday in his home. "We raised him like our own. He listed us as his mother and father on all his military records."

Pokorney was remembered around Tonopah on Tuesday as a star athlete, a solid student and a dedicated Marine and family man.

"We're going to miss a good person, that's for sure," said George Robertson, who owns a Chevron station in town. He said his son went to high school with Pokorney.

At Tonopah High School, Principal Barbara Floto said Pokorney's death hit some of the students hard.

"Once they realized the impact of the loss of an alumni, they changed from, `Oh, this war doesn't necessarily affect us here,' to, `Wow, this really hits home,' " she said.

Students in the school's leadership class made banners reading "God Bless America" and "We support our troops" that were hung in the hallways on Tuesday.

Floto said the students were proud of one they painted in Marinelike camouflage colors that paid tribute to American troops.

Pokorney was particularly adept at sports. He stood 6 feet, 7 inches tall, Lieseke said, and played both football and basketball.

He played wide receiver, tight end and outside linebacker on the Muckers football team. He was the basketball team's center, recalled Jim Smyth, a Las Vegas attorney, who was his teammate and classmate and "rode long bus rides" with him. "I'm horribly saddened by his death. ... He was a quiet kind of guy. All he was about was playing sports and hanging out with his girlfriend.

"Unlike the rest of (the) kids from the desert, he kept his nose clean. He didn't go out and drink beer. He was quiet and reserved and did his thing," Smyth said.

Fighting back tears, Janet Dwyer, secretary at the high school, recalled his return to Tonopah after boot camp. "I remember him coming back and being all excited in uniform. He was just so proud to be a Marine."

In Washington, Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., who flew combat missions in the first war against Iraq, called Pokorney a "hero among heroes."

Floto, the school principal, said Gibbons called the school on Tuesday to offer whatever help he could.

She said a memorial service is planned for Pokorney at 8 a.m. Friday at the school.

Lieseke, who served as a helicopter gunner in the Army during the Vietnam War and received two Purple Hearts, said Pokorney excelled as a Marine because he had always sought order and stability in his life.

"Fred's mood was always serious," said Lieseke, who spent 22 years with the Sheriff's Department before losing a bid for a fourth term as sheriff last year. "He liked the discipline. He liked the order."

He received his most recent promotion after graduating from Oregon State University with a degree in military science, Lieseke said.

"The Marine Corps decided he was officer material and sent him through college," said Lieseke. But he added, "A lot of good it does him now."

As proud of Pokorney as Lieseke is, he said he is also bitter that the young man had to go to Iraq at all. "There's not a million Iraqis worth Fred's life," he said.

He said he is hazy about the circumstances of Pokorney's death, and suspected he will always remain so.

"I'm just not sure it's for us to be the liberators of Iraq. Why does it always have to be us?" he asked.