Sunday, April 20, 2003
By KURT BRESSWEIN
The Express-Times
A 20th birthday, a promotion and lots of sand have given U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Rodney J. Alexander plenty to write home about from the Persian Gulf.
He sent two letters to his aunt and uncle, Donna and Dennis Alexander of Bethlehem, since being deployed to the region earlier this year.
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He tried calling, too, from Camp Doha in Kuwait, about six weeks before the war’s first bombs fell on Iraq the morning of March 20 there and the night of March 19 here, Donna Alexander said.
“We weren’t home so he just left us a message and we haven’t heard from him since,” she said. “He said it’s very sandy.”
Rodney Alexander, who spent most of his teen years living with his aunt and uncle, left Camp Pendleton in California for the Iraq region as a lance corporal. While there, he was promoted to corporal.
“How many people can say they were promoted while in Kuwait?” Donna Alexander asked.
His job is amphibious assault vehicle mechanic with a combat service support element ordinance/maintenance detachment. Becoming a Marine is something Rodney Alexander started thinking about in 11th grade — toward the end of his stay with his aunt and uncle.
His goal was to spend some time in the Corps then go to school and become a Pennsylvania State Police trooper, Donna Alexander said.
She recalled her nephew’s graduation from boot camp at Parris Island, S.C., during a particularly emotional time for all of America. He became a Marine on Sept. 14, 2001, the Friday after the Tuesday when terrorists killed thousands by hijacking and crashing four jets.
“We were on our way down there that Tuesday and we heard what happened on the radio,” Donna Alexander recalled.
Donna and Dennis Alexander took custody of Rodney Alexander when he was 13 and an eighth-grader at Nitschmann Middle School. He lived at their Abington Road home with them and their daughter, Ashley, who is 12.
An honor-roll student and football player, Rodney Alexander attended Liberty High School through half of his junior year before moving in at age 17 with his father, Ronald Behler, in Lehighton, Carbon County.
Rodney Alexander finished his education at the Carbon County Vocational Technical School in nearby Jim Thorpe.
He also lived for a time with his grandparents Violet and James Alexander in Bethlehem.
Donna Alexander said she has been watching 24-hour news channels on television for word of her nephew or his unit. Unaware of what he’s been going through, she takes solace in thinking of James Alexander — an Air Force veteran of the Korean War who died a few years ago — watching over her nephew.
“My husband keeps telling me, ‘He’s fine. Pappy’s with him. They have to get through Pappy first,'” Donna Alexander said. “That makes me feel a little better.”
