March 22, 2003
U.S. Marine 'put his life on the line for the world' By SARAH SCHWEITZER SKOWHEGAN, Maine - Capt. Jay Aubin wanted little else from the time he was a boy soaring in the bush planes his father piloted over the wilds of Maine. Flying was a singular dream, one that would lead the Skowhegan native to enlist in the military and ultimately to the sandy stretches of Kuwait, where he died this week in a helicopter crash. Capt. Aubin, a 36-year-old husband and father of two, was among four U.S. Marines and eight British commandos killed in a helicopter crash nine miles from the Iraqi border Thursday, the first casualties of the war that has since claimed more American lives. Authorities have said there was no hostile fire on the CH-46 Sea Knight chopper and the cause of the crash is under investigation, though indications are that it was an accident. For a man like Capt. Aubin who believed wholly that war in Iraq was right and necessary, his death so early in the conflict and without confrontation with the enemy seemed a painful irony to his family. "He had ideals and he was going to put his life on the line for the world," said his stepmother, Carol Aubin of Bangs, Texas. "The sad fact is that war was just starting - we were just 23 hours into it." The death rippled through Maine, echoing earlier dreadful news during the war in Afghanistan, when Air Force Master Sgt. Evan Andrews, a native of the central Maine town of Solon, was the first American soldier to die in the campaign against terrorists that opened in October 2001. In Skowhegan, a town of nearly 9,000 where Capt. Aubin played high school football and baseball and was voted student of the year as a senior by teachers, churches made calls early Friday morning asking parishioners to pray for his family, a well-known clan with French-Canadian roots whose Sunday night dinners each week rank with Thanksgiving Day feasts. Many of Capt. Aubin's relatives are still living in Skowhegan, while his mother lives in the nearby town of Winslow. Paula Dore said Capt. Aubin's aunt, a co-worker, had been talking about her nephew all week, saying she was so proud of him being overseas. "Your heart breaks when you hear about the casualties," Ms. Dore said. "But when it is one of your hometown boys, it is unbelievable." Word of the fatal crash reached Capt. Aubin's family first through morbid guesswork. They saw news reports on television of a downed helicopter Thursday in Kuwait, the sort they knew Capt. Aubin flew. "We were like, 'What are the odds?' " said his aunt, Lynn Aubuchon of Madison, a neighboring town. "But it was his." Family members describe Capt. Aubin, the eldest of three boys whose cheeks dimpled deeply when he smiled, as a ram-rod straight-arrow, the sort who never drank or smoked, who pursued a plan seemingly mapped from birth. "He loved aviation," said his father, Thomas Aubin, who piloted planes himself out of Greenville, Maine, ferrying forestry workers to remote spots. He often strapped his son into the seat beside him from the time the boy was 2. When he was 4 or 5, his father recalled, Capt. Aubin sat on the tires of airplanes the father was attempting to sell, doing little good for the cause as he ticked off the problems with the planes as potential buyers looked them over. "I had to tell him, 'Don't tell them everything that's wrong with the airplane,' " said Thomas Aubin. "He knew about as much about planes as any guy many times his age." When Capt. Aubin graduated from high school in Skowhegan, he wanted to go to college, but money was short and the military beckoned. He enlisted in the Marines and served four years, based in California, where he worked as a helicopter mechanic. There he met his wife, Rhonda, a fellow Marine. The couple had two children. Capt. Aubin returned to Maine for school, graduating from Southern Maine Vocational Technical College with an associate's degree in machine tool technology, then earning his bachelor's degree from the University of Southern Maine in Portland in 1993. At the end of schooling, without hesitation, he re-enlisted in the Marines, this time as an officer and this time, headed to flight school in Pensacola, Fla., family members said. "He was so delighted," recalled his uncle, Peter Willette. "When he left the Marines to go to school, he was so lost. Being in the military was a dream that he stepped into with open arms." Capt. Aubin would go on to serve in Japan, flying helicopters into East Timor during the political unrest there, his father said. He came home to Maine this past summer and spent several weeks with his family before moving west again to train other pilots in Yuma, Ariz. Shortly before shipping out to Kuwait earlier this year, Capt. Aubin told family members that he'd been tapped to pilot the helicopter used by President Bush. But first, he said, there was another mission he had been called to answer. "He said it was real important, and he had to go," said his uncle, Mr. Willette. "He was ready and energized. He said it was something that had to be done." |
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