Veto Pen Honoree "So Ready to Come Home"

President Bush vetoed the war supplemental funding bill. In so doing, he used the pen provided by Robert Derga, a member of Families United for Our Troops father of Marine Corps Reserve Cpl. Dustin A. Derga killed in Iraq. The elder Derga asked Bush to promise to use the pen in his veto. On Tuesday, Derga contacted the White House to remind Bush to use the pen, and so he did.

Interestingly enough, had the president known what Reservist Derga's hopes were, he would have likely not signed the veto.

According to Mackenzie Fry, This Week, May 12, 2005

"A Pickerington Marine who wrote recently in a Web site posting that he was "so ready to come home" was killed Sunday in Iraq. Cpl. Dustin A. Derga, 24, died in Ubaydi as the result of enemy fire, the Department of Defense reported Monday.

Derga, a 1999 graduate of Pickerington High School, was assigned to Marine Forces Reserves 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division. He was a member of the Columbus-based Lima Company.

Brandon Harmon, who is dating Derga's sister, Kristin, answered the phone at the family's home Tuesday. Harmon described Derga as a "very outgoing, positive person. Fun to be around." He said Derga would "do anything for you." Harmon said Derga's family, including parents Stephanie and Robert, was handling the news as "good as it can be expected."

Derga was due to return home next month, Harmon said. He said Derga had aspirations of becoming a firefighter and had made other plans, including possibly opening a bar with a friend and moving in with his girlfriend. "You feel like your world crumbles, you know?" Harmon said.

"He was a good kid," said Ken Schneider, who was Derga's teacher in the high school's construction and engineering technology preparation program in 1998 and 1999. "He worked hard."

In a posting May 3 on the "Reach a Marine" Web site, Derga said his unit had just returned from a week-long mission and was leaving for another, which he said would "be even longer," right away. He described an "unusual" hailstorm that had hit the night before. "I am so ready to come home," he wrote."