ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Marine Staff Sgt. Alexander Ortega, killed in shelling in Lebanon, had told his sister not to worry about his possible death.
'Don't worry Bonnie. I'm not coming home in a box. It's not my style,' Ortega wrote his sister, Bonnie McKean, from Lebanon.
Ortega's parents Monday told President Reagan they hope no other parents have to go through what they did.
Reagan called Helen and Alexander Ortega at their home in the Rochester suburb of Henrietta after they had been notified of their 25-year-old son's death.
'Mr. President, I appreciate what you're saying very much,' Alexander Ortega told Reagan, 'but you know, I'd hate to see any other parents going through what we're going through right now.'
Ortega then added: 'You don't think there could be a chance of pulling those boys out of there?'
Reagan replied he was doing everything possible to create a situation in which the Lebanese could keep peace in their own country.
Ortega and Lt. Donald Losey of North Carolina were the first U.S. troops killed in combat since an international peace-keeping force arrived in Lebanon last summer.
Helen Ortega said she had a premonition her son was dead as soon as she heard two Marines had been killed by mortar fire.
In a letter Ortega sent to his sister, and obtained by the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the sergeant wrote about the death of a relative.
'Our family is really dying off, one by one,' Ortega wrote. 'Pretty soon there'll be no family except for yours and mine.'
Ortega went on to describe recent bombings.
'We got bombed pretty good,' he wrote. 'The airport was closed for one week when the bombs hit. All you could see was Lebanese people flying and dying. We had a couple of marines hurt, but nothing serious. The best part is we got to fight back for the first time. So I guess I'm a combat veteran now. (Ha Ha). I still feel the same now.'
The Defense Department, asked Tuesday about Ortega's reference to fighting back 'for the first time,' said the Marine apparently was referring to the use of 'illumination rounds,' the recognized signal used by multi-national peace-keeping forces as a cease-and-desist order.
The rounds were fired Aug. 10 when an artillery round landed inside the Marine compound, injuring a Marine officer.
'Our reports indicate this is the incident to which Staff Sgt. Ortega was referring in his letter,' the Pentagon statement said.
Ortega's family said he got a lot of satisfaction out of giving candy to children in Beirut.
Ortega, who was stationed at Camp Lejune in North Carolina, is survived by a year-old daughter and his wife, Robin, who is expecting a second child in December. Mrs. Ortega lives in North Carolina.
Plans are being made to fly family members to North Carolina as soon as Ortega'a body arrives from Beirut.
The family is trying to decide where Ortega is to be buried. They were told by his wife that he had left instructions to be buried in a quiet hilltop cemetery in Pittsburgh.
