09:28 AM EDT on Thursday, July 8, 2004

BY MICHAEL P. McKINNEY
Journal Staff Writer

Journal photo / Kathy Borcher John and Jane Van Gyzen of Dighton, Mass., the father and stepmother of Lance Cpl. John J. Van Gyzen IV who was killed in action in Iraq on Monday, grapple with the news of his death yesterday.

They remembered John J. Van Gyzen IV, a Marine killed Monday in Iraq, as the boy who used to look at mom, waiting for her to unhook the fish from the fishing rod. The young man who bounded about on a snowmobile in New Hampshire. The guy they nicknamed Buddy.

Van Gyzen, of Dighton, a rifleman and lance corporal who served in the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, turned 21 on June 16. He died as a result of "enemy action" in the Al Anbar province near Syria.

From Dighton to across Rhode Island, people grappled with sadness but also fond memories.

"All I can say," said his father, John Van Gyzen, his voice choking, "is he never came home to take the ribbon off the tree."

There was the time his father took his son out on Mount Hope Bay. The son asked whether there were any sharks. "And I said, 'Well, you'll be the first to find out'," Van Gyzen joked. He made sure his son got wet that day.

Other times, they loaded the son's dirt bike in the back of a truck and went in search of power lines. The younger Van Gyzen would bike his way along the path cut to accommodate the towers that carry the lines, his father said.

There was water rafting and tubing. And Van Gyzen loved baseball. At Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School, from which he graduated in 2001, Van Gyzen participated in track and field.

He enlisted in the Marines on Oct. 9, 2001. After boot camp at Parris Island, S.C., he joined the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, as a rifleman on March 30, 2002.

John J. Van Gyzen IV joined the Marines shortly after graduating fro Dighton Rehoboth Regional High School in 2001.

In January 2003, Van Gyzen was sent to Kuwait and, months later, headed into Iraq as the war to oust Saddam Hussein began. In September 2003, he returned to the United States where he married, according to several family members. His wife, Amanda, who lives in Twentynine Palms, Calif., could not be reached yesterday.

Dorothy Arsenault, of West Warwick, yesterday recalled her son's sense of humor. As he got older, he would still sometimes do what he did as a little boy: walk over to her and wait for her to take the fish off the line.

"He thought it was funny," she said.

Van Gyzen's mother and father raised him mainly in Foster and then in West Warwick, with his sisters Bethany, Jessica and Angel. When his parents divorced, Van Gyzen went to live with his father in Dighton but also saw his mother regularly.

His mother remembered a food drive at her church. Her son, she said, took charge and helped collect money from people at a Sam's Club store.

Van Gyzen's stepmother, Jane Van Gyzen, of Dighton, said her stepson became a "wonderful uncle." She called him a "hero" for his service.

Van Gyzen's grandmother, Genevieve Van Gyzen, of Warwick, had 10 grandchildren to dote on. Van Gyzen and the rest of the children grew up on her potato salad, and "grammie's meatballs."

As a boy, John Van Gyzen played with a toy that, his grandmother said, eventually landed him the nickname Buddy. It seemed yesterday that the nickname came to mean something more.

His grandmother said she has strong doubts about the war, but said she is "proud of him, of course."

Van Gyzen has been recommended for a Purple Heart, the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center said yesterday.

There has been talk in the family of putting the fallen soldier to rest in a familiar place, she said. It is a family plot in the Veterans Cemetery in Exeter. There rests another soldier named John Van Gyzen, who fought in World War II in the Navy. It is Genevieve's husband, Lance Cpl. Van Gyzen's grandfather.

"It's very difficult," said Genevieve Van Gyzen. "The child buries the parent. The parent doesn't bury the child."

To contact Mike McKinney, phone 508-674-8401 or e-mail mmckinne [at] projo.com