Three Pa. Marines among 10 killed in helicopter crash

In a recent e-mail to his family, Sgt. Jonathan E. McColley of Gettysburg displayed his sense of humor, attaching a photo labeled "sexy guy."

The picture, however, was all business. It showed the 23-year-old McColley, gun in hand, in a sandy, desolate area with a few trees in the background.

Less than two months away from being rotated out of Africa, McColley was one of 10 U.S. service members killed when a pair of Marine Corps helicopters crashed off the coast of Africa on Friday.

The two CH-53E choppers carrying a dozen crew and troops from a U.S. counterterrorism force crashed during a training flight in the Gulf of Aden, near the northern coastal town of Ras Siyyan in Djibouti.

Two other Pennsylvanians from the North Carolina-based unit were killed in the crash: Sgt. James F. Fordyce, 22, of Newtown Square, and 33-year-old Capt. Bryan D. Willard, 33, of Hummelstown.

John McColley first heard about a helicopter crash from a television news report Friday, hours before any official word came from the military.

"That news affected every member of the contingent, 40 or 50 families," McColley said in a telephone interview Sunday night. "Every family's heart sank."

McColley received official word later that night that his son, whom he called by his middle name Eric, was listed as missing. Early Saturday, he was told that his son had died in the crash.

McColley comes from a military family. His father is a former Marine. His sister, Cheryl Newbanks, spent six years in the Navy aboard the USS Enterprise. She completed her service duty about a year ago, her father said.

McColley said his son decided to join the Marines when he was a junior in high school, and that he had signed the papers in the fall of 1999. He entered the service after graduating in June 2000.

His father said McColley's enthusiasm for the military never wavered. In fact, he and his son, who would have turned 24 on June 1, spoke by telephone on Tuesday, and McColley said his son had already decided to re-up.

"He was the proudest Marine I ever met," the elder McColley said.

Fordyce, a helicopter mechanic, signed up for the Marines after graduating from Marple Newtown High School in 2001. His family declined comment Sunday night, but in 2004 his parents told the Delaware County Daily Times that he felt a strong sense of duty.

"When I asked him how he felt about it he said, 'Mom, it's like being on the football team and sitting on the bench," Margaret A. Fordyce said in December 2004. "'If you're trained to do it and you have an opportunity to do it, then you want to do it. You don't want to be sitting on the bench.'"

"I get a tear in my eye every time he puts on his dress uniform," she told the paper. "This is his job. This is what he does. That's the way we look at it."

The remains of the eight Marines and two airmen were sent back to the United States on Sunday, task force spokeswoman Maj. Susan Romano told The Associated Press.