Arlington Marine will be laid to rest in National Cemetery

Published 9:47 pm Friday, July 20, 2007

ARLINGTON – An Arlington Marine who died this week in Iraq will be buried Thursday near Washington, D.C., his mother said Friday.

Lance Cpl. Shawn Starkovich, 20, who attended both Marysville-Pilchuck and Arlington high schools, died Monday in Anbar province while serving with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Division. He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va.

Services for two sailors from Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, who also were killed this week in Iraq, are pending.

Only relatives are expected to attend the Arlington National Cemetery ceremony, said his mother, Kelly Starkovich.

Family and friends will be able to celebrate the Marine’s life at a service locally, possibly at the family’s Arlington-area home. The date has not been set, and other plans are still being made, Starkovich said.

The Marine’s body arrived Thursday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, she said. The Defense Department has not said exactly how Starkovich was killed, she added. It was listed as a noncombat death, which is still under investigation.

Two Whidbey Island-based sailors were killed and a third was injured in the explosion of a roadside bomb north of Baghdad.

Relatives for both sailors who were killed said Friday that service arrangements are still pending.

A memorial service for one of them, Chief Petty Officer Patrick Wade, 38, of Key West, Fla., will be conducted sometime next week in Oak Harbor.

Ann Wade, the sailor’s sister-in-law, said relatives were scheduled to travel to Dover over the weekend to accompany his body to Oak Harbor, where his wife, Keri, and two daughters live.

She said the family plans to cremate his remains and bring his ashes back to Wisconsin, where he grew up. Relatives plan to sprinkle Wade’s ashes over a lake where the family fished and went canoeing.

“He was a fine man and will be sadly missed,” Wade said.

No services have been set for the second sailor, Petty Officer 1st Class Jeffrey Chaney, 35. Relatives said he will be buried in his hometown, Omaha, Neb.

Whidbey Island Naval Air Station will conduct a memorial for both of the sailors, probably in late July or early August, a base spokeswoman said.

Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.