Semper Fi: Marines reunite late veteran with his family

In the early 1970s -- at a time when some young American men left their homeland to avoid being drafted into the military -- one young Mexican man was leaving his homeland to volunteer for service.

Sergio Martinez wanted to join the Marines, his daughter said.

"He was quite the man. He came to the United States from Mexico, and he took the Marine Corps test. ... He knew that's what he wanted to be when he came," Elisa Netzer said in a recent telephone interview.

Because he did not speak English well, Martinez failed the test the first time he took it. Undaunted, he worked on his English, retook the test and passed, Netzer said.

He served in the Vietnam War and went to Japan and Cambodia, she said.

Martinez was 55 when he died of a lung condition in 2007. His survivors had him cremated.

Nearly seven years later, his ashes turned up in an abandoned storage locker in Perryville, Missouri.

"The gentleman that bought the stuff in there found this old box, and he saw that it said something about remains," said Jim Stroman, chaplain for the Cape Girardeau-based Corporal Mason O. Yarbrough Detachment of the Marine Corps League.

The box eventually wound up in the hands of veteran Roy Rhodes, who brought it to the Marine Corps League so the ashes could be returned to family members, Stroman said.

"They said, 'We'll let the chaplain do it,'" Stroman said.

Stroman, who once worked as a skiptracer, began trying to track down the late Marine's family.

"We did have his obituary, and we got hold of the funeral home," he said.

Unfortunately, many of Martinez's survivors had moved, and Stroman had trouble tracking them down.

At a fundraising breakfast for the Marine Corps League, someone suggested using social media to try to find Martinez's family, so on March 30, Stroman posted his obituary on Facebook.

About three days later, another military man -- Martinez's nephew, who is in the Navy -- saw the post, Stroman said.

The sailor called Netzer.

"He read it to me, and I immediately started crying, and I went through a whole range of emotions," she said.

Another relative previously had been in possession of the ashes, so Netzer hadn't realized they were missing until her cousin saw Stroman's post on Facebook, she said.

Netzer, who lives in the Columbia, Missouri, area, had just had a baby and couldn't travel to Southeast Missouri to pick up her father's ashes, so her mother, who lives in the Cape Girardeau area, went in her place.

The Marine Corps League held a small memorial service for Martinez before transferring his ashes to his ex-wife.

"It became very emotional for me and for other people, too," Stroman said. "With Marines, they're our brothers, and he is our brother, and I felt like they were family. I was taking one of my brothers and giving him back to his family."

After the ceremony, Netzer's mother brought Martinez's ashes to her.

"Now he stays here with me," she said.

Netzer said her father would be proud of Stroman.

"I was just amazed at the kindness he had, and it just reiterated everything I know about Marines, and you look out for each other," she said. "...I know my dad would be proud that another Marine went to such lengths to do the right thing."

epriddy@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

Cape Girardeau, MO

Perryville, MO