Simi sailor dies in Iraq crash
John House leaves wife, newborn son

By Marjorie Hernandez, mhernandez@ VenturaCountyStar.com
January 27, 2005

In the pages of letters he sent home from Iraqi battlegrounds, Navy medic John Daniel House wrote about the camaraderie and responsibility he felt for his fellow soldiers.

"In one of the letters, he wrote, 'I know all of them ... even in the dark, by their mannerisms,' " House's mother, Susan House of Simi Valley, read as she choked back tears. " 'I don't know how I am going to deal with losing any of them. It is my job to take care of them and keep them safe.' "

House, 28, a graduate of Simi Valley High School, died with the Marines he vowed to protect in a helicopter crash in Iraq early Wednesday morning. The crash also claimed the lives of 30 Marines.

House, 28, was the only Navy sailor on board the CH-53E Super Stallion when it crashed, military officials said.

The plane was carrying personnel from the 1st Marine Division on a security mission in support of Sunday's election when it went down about 1:20 a.m. near the town of Rutbah, about 220 miles west of Baghdad, military officials said.

The crash occurred during severe weather, but its cause was still under investigation, said Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command.

House, who was in the 1st Battalion Third Marine Division, was scheduled to return Feb. 20 to Hawaii, where he was stationed at Pearl Harbor, family members said.

House had been stationed at Pearl Harbor for about a year, where he lived with his wife, Melanie, who gave birth to their son, James Cash, on Christmas Eve.

Although the rest of his battalion returned home in July, House remained in Iraq because more Navy medics were needed, family members said.

This was House's second deployment to Iraq.

House wanted to join the Marines after he graduated from Moorpark High in 1994, but decided to delay those plans when he met Melanie. The couple married Sept. 14, 2001.

House decided to enlist in the Navy in 1998. He was not planning to re-enlist when his contract was to have expired in March 2006, Susan said.

Instead, House planned to spend more time with Melanie and their son, family members said.

Susan and her husband, Ventura County Sheriff's Deputy Larry House, were aware of the crash from television news reports Wednesday morning, not knowing that the lone Navy corpsman killed in the incident was their son.

Susan followed news reports, using the Internet at work, and her heart dropped when she heard that one of the 31 killed was a Navy corpsman.

She immediately called Melanie in Hawaii.

"I called my daughter-in-law to ask about the baby so I wouldn't alarm her," Susan said. "But as soon as she picked up the phone, she started crying. That's how I found out."

It was about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday when Larry heard the devastating news. A bailiff in Ventura County Superior Court, he immediately left work to be with his family.

Larry and Susan spoke with their son several times by phone while they were in Hawaii less than a week ago to visit Melanie and their first grandson.

Larry said his son was able to hear the newborn's first cries from the hospital room Christmas Eve over a satellite phone. He also had the opportunity to get a first glimpse of his son through a video connection a few days later.

Susan and Larry and their two other children, James and Elizabeth, plan to fly to Hawaii today to be with Melanie and the baby. The services in Hawaii and Simi Valley have not been planned yet.

--The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/sv/article/0,1375,VCS_239_3501860,00.html

Troops killed in crash came from across America

HONOLULU, Hawaii (AP) -- Most of the troops lost in the U.S. military's deadliest single incident of the Iraq war were based in Hawaii, but they came from coast to coast, from Florida to New Hampshire, from Ohio to Oregon.

Some of the families of the 30 Marines and a Navy medic killed Wednesday when a helicopter crashed in a sandstorm shared their memories and their grief after military officials told them of the deaths. The Pentagon identified the sailor killed as Petty Officer 3rd Class John D. House, of Ventura, California, but said it would not publicly identify the Marines until all families were notified. So far, the families themselves have identified 12 of the Marines.

House was a 28-year-old who never got the chance to meet his baby boy, born Christmas Eve.

House had written letters home describing the camaraderie and responsibility he felt for the Marines in his unit, his parents told the Ventura County Star.

"In one of the letters he wrote, 'I know all of them ... even in the dark, by their mannerisms,"' Susan House of Simi Valley, California, read, choking back tears. "'I don't know how I am going to deal with losing any of them. It is my job to take care of them and keep them safe."'

The CH-53E Super Stallion went down in western Iraq while transporting troops for security operations in preparation of Sunday's elections. The military was investigating the cause of the crash and gave no indication there had been enemy fire.

Twenty-seven of the dead were based at Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay, according to Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii. It was the single worst loss of Hawaii-based troops since the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Read the rest here:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/27/helicopter.crash.ap/index.html

Los Angeles Daily News

Area man among chopper fatalities

Thursday, January 27, 2005 - A 28-year-old Simi Valley sailor was among 31 troops killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq early Wednesday.

John Daniel House was the only Navy sailor on board the CH53E Super Stallion when it crashed in bad weather near the Syrian and Jordanian borders, military officials said. The rest were Marines.

His mother, Susan, and father, Larry House, a sheriff's deputy with Ventura County, flew to Hawaii on Thursday morning to be at the side of their son's wife, Melanie, and their newborn grandson, John Chase House.

On Wednesday, a stream of friends and family members visited the victim's family to offer their condolences, neighbors said.

"Larry was one of the first people in the country to have the yellow ribbon in his house," said sheriff's Deputy Vince Demarco. "He was very proud of his son. His license plate reads 'NAVY DAD."'

Friends described John House as a selfless, caring and compassionate man who risked his safety to protect his fellow soldiers.

The transport helicopter went down about 1:20 a.m. Wednesday and the cause is still under investigation.

House is a 1994 graduate of Moorpark High School who was stationed at Pearl Harbor, where he lived with his wife and son. John Chase was born on Christmas Eve. Deputies have set up a fund for Chase at the Ventura County Credit Union.

"There's a lot of sorrow around here," said sheriff's Deputy Scott Van Tassell. "One of our deputies lost a brother, the other a son."

Van Tassell was referring to the death Wednesday of Los Angeles County sheriff's Deputy Jim Tutino, 47, of Simi Valley, who was killed in Wednesday's Metrolink train crash in Glendale. Tutino's brother is a sheriff's deputy in Ventura County.

"Last night, I came after work and he told me, 'I'm really sad, my son was in the helicopter in Iraq,"' said neighbor Jose Guel, 50. "They are a very nice family, very nice people. We're all really sad for them." -- Angie Valencia-Martinez

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/news/012705_nw_sailors_parents_speak.html

Parents of Sailor Killed in Iraq Speak Out

LOS ANGELES — The investigation continues into what caused that deadly helicopter crash in Iraq. Thirty Marines died, along with one Navy Corpsman John Daniel House. House was a new father. Tonight his parents from Simi Valley talk about their son and the last letters he sent home from the war.

Susan and Larry House of Simi Valley had a bad feeling when they heard the news of helicopter crash in Iraq. It was only when Susan called her daughter-in-law in Hawaii, when she learned one of the victims was her son.

Susan House said, "She just answered the phone crying and said, 'I thought you knew.' Then she put his friend on the phone, and he couldn't say it, except to say, 'It's true.'"

Twenty-year-old John Daniel House was a Navy Corpsman on his second tour of duty. His parents say he was reluctant to go back to Iraq again.

His father, Larry House, cling to letters his son sent him recently. Choking back tears he read one aloud this morning on ABC News' Good Morning America. In part, he read: I don't think this war will ever end. Like my brothers I can't understand it, but they'd do anything for me.

House was a new father and was never able to hold his one-month old child in his arms who was born on Christmas Eve. House only saw his new son in pictures.

Now, there is sadness in his parents' hearts, so painful, it doesn't feel real.

Last Updated: Jan 28, 2005

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47597-2005Jan29.html

Crash in Iraq Leaves a Family Void
Navy Medic Killed in Helicopter Accident Never Got to Meet Son

By Amy Argetsinger
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page A22

HONOLULU, Jan. 29 -- Melanie House looked at her husband. John was looking at their son. And then she saw him wipe his eyes.

"Are you all right?" she remembers asking. Because John Daniel House, that tattooed, tough-guy, motorcycle-riding, Johnny Cash-worshiping Navy corpsman she had married, was crying.

"I just can't believe that's our baby," he said.

Petty Officer 3rd Class John House was in Iraq, 8,406 miles from his wife and child in Honolulu. It had galled him to miss the Christmas Eve birth of his first child, and now he was meeting 12-day-old James Cash House over a blurry Internet video connection. For a first face-to-face, it was woefully inadequate and unbearably precious. Three weeks later, House was killed along with 30 Marines when their helicopter crashed Wednesday in a sandstorm in western Iraq.

All but the flight crew were based here in Hawaii -- House at Pearl Harbor and 26 Marines at nearby Kaneohe Bay. Like House, all of the Hawaii Marines had endured the bloody assault on insurgents in Fallujah last fall. And like House, two of the Marines were fathers of newborns they never had a chance to hold.

This island experienced something of a collective shudder after the news of the crash. Yet relatively few here could claim a close connection to the lost. Several thousand Hawaii-based troops serve in Afghanistan or Iraq. But many are young and unattached. And officials here say that many service members with families send them back to mainland home towns to wait out their long deployments closer to a network of friends and relatives.

John and Melanie House were in that in-between stage, a family still on the way when he was sent for a second tour of the Middle East in September. So she stayed in Hawaii. And when John made friends with the two other fathers-to-be he had met, Melanie sought out their pregnant wives, who had also stayed in Hawaii, and they formed a support network of their own. Now, she said, "there's three babies that won't have fathers."

On a sunny Friday afternoon, the shades were mostly drawn in the modest military duplex that the Houses moved into in spring 2003. Melanie, a 27-year-old with high, angled cheekbones and a cascade of curly hair, fed and cradled James, a boy with his father's long eyelashes, as a constant stream of Navy officers moved through her living room to assist with funeral arrangements and deliver condolences. In between visits, she sat with her sister and her husband's parents and brother and sister, and they talked about John.

In many ways, their relationship and his transformation into a family man were interwoven with his Navy career. Raised in Ventura, Calif., he was still in high school when he considered joining the military, signing a contract with the Marines. But then he met Melanie, a student at another high school, when she came into the restaurant where he was working as a busboy.

"He said, 'I think I'm in love and I can't leave,' " recalled his mother, Susan.

He reconsidered a few years later. He had drifted through various jobs -- carpentry work, an auto-parts store -- but as he turned 22 realized he wanted a more stable career, with benefits. In December 1998, House joined the Navy and headed off to boot camp. When his parents visited a few months later, they found a changed man.

"They say the military either makes you or breaks you," said his father, Larry. "It really made John." He and Melanie recommitted to their on-again, off-again relationship. They wed in Las Vegas in spring 2000, more than a year earlier than they had planned, to take advantage of the Navy's benefits and increased pay for married sailors.

House loved his work as a medical corpsman but became even more gung-ho after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "It was like, 'I wanna go over there; I want to make my family safe,' " Melanie recalled. He got his chance in June 2002, when he was sent from Camp Pendleton in California to Bahrain and Kuwait with a unit of Marines setting the stage for an invasion of Iraq.

But six months later when he returned, he was nonetheless glad to be assigned shore duty at Pearl Harbor. Assuming he was back in the United States for good, the couple began planning a family. Melanie was six months pregnant when he was ordered to Iraq.

That second deployment began to sour John House on the military, his family says. He couldn't believe he was missing the birth of his first child. He was horrified by the bloodshed he saw in Fallujah -- rotting bodies in the street, his own Marines killed or wounded -- and disenchanted to realize that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction or connection to Sept. 11. He abandoned his plans to make a career of the Navy. His only goals were to stay alive and to make it home. His deployment was to end next month.

Melanie got a call from her husband last week. She thinks it was just before he got on that helicopter. "I'll see you in 19 days," he promised.

Now, in their Hawaii house, she is left with a few tokens of a man who was very excited to become a dad: the stuffed toy he had slept with under his shirt for two weeks so his son would know his scent when he returned. And the recordings he had made of himself reading "Goodnight Moon" so his son would know his voice.

"I've played it for James a lot," Melanie said -- even when he was still in utero. But so far this week, she added with a wince, "I haven't been able to listen to it."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

A photo of fallen sailor, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class John D. House of Ventura, Calif., is shown on a screen during a memorial service held in his honor at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Thursday, Feb. 3, 2005. House was among those killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq last week. House, who was stationed at Pearl Harbor, was scheduled to return to the United States in February. House was serving in Iraq when his son was born on Christmas Eve. The 28-year-old Navy medic never got to meet his son face-to-face. (AP Photo/Ronen Zilberman)

Memorial Held For Navy Corpsman Killed In Iraq Crash

Family, Friends Honor Fallen Medic

POSTED: 4:20 pm HST February 3, 2005
UPDATED: 5:10 pm HST February 3, 2005

PEARL HARBOR, Oahu, Hawaii -- A memorial service honoring Petty Officer 3rd Class John Daniel House, a Navy Corpsman medic, was held at Pearl Harbor Thursday afternoon. House was killed along with 26 Kaneohe Marines in a helicopter crash last week.

"He loved life, man after my own heart, loved country music. There's a lot of things about him that made him special," Naval health clinic Hawaii commander Capt. Charlie Baker said.

The special things that made up the short life of House were remembered in pictures and heartfelt words. Some of the most moving came from House's widow, Melanie, and were read by his father.


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"He was a good sailor and a committed Navy corpsman. John was also a wonderful husband and I know he loved our son, James. Although the two never had the chance to meet, I know John will be with James every day of his life," House's father, Larry, said.

House married his high school sweetheart. The wedding was three days after Sept. 11, 2001. His son, James, was born on Christmas Eve. The hospital corpsman was serving a second tour of duty in Iraq and was expected to return home later this month.

"You gave more in your life than I've ever asked of you and I thank you for being the best brother ever," House's sister, Elizabeth, said.

A sea of white filled the chapel at Pearl Harbor to remember the Navy medic who felt "his Marines," as he called them, were his responsibility to keep safe. His Marines called him "Doc."

House was one of 38 Navy medics to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We consider ourselves an ohana. We treat each other as ohana and Petty Officer House was truly ohana," Baker said.

House will be buried near the family's home in Simi Valley, Calif.

There were 31 people onboard the chopper when it went down. There were no survivors.

MILITARY DEATHS
Californians Among 31 Killed in Helicopter Crash
Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class John House, 28, Simi Valley

By Gregory W. Griggs
Times Staff Writer

February 6, 2005

Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class John D. House missed the birth of his first child on Christmas Eve and was excited about returning to Hawaii from Iraq this month to finally hold his son.

House, 28, was a medical corpsman on his second tour in the region, having first served in Bahrain and Kuwait in 2002 preparing for the invasion of Iraq. He returned in September with a Marine Corps battalion also stationed at Pearl Harbor.

He saw action in Fallouja and was part of the U.S. forces providing security before last weekend's elections.

On Jan. 26, four days before ballots were cast, the former Simi Valley resident was killed along with 30 Marines when their military transport helicopter crashed during bad weather near Rutbah, in western Iraq.

"I miss the fact that we'll never be able to see him with his baby, to be a father himself, because I know he would have been a good one," said his father, Larry, a Simi Valley resident and Ventura County sheriff's deputy.

Although he once considered a Navy career, the younger House decided that, after his son, James, was born, a profession that included combat was not ideal for a family.

John Daniel House, born in an area known as "Steel Valley" near Pittsburgh, was 6 when his parents moved him, younger brother James and sister Elizabeth to Ventura County.

The 1995 graduate of Moorpark High School is remembered by athletic director Rob Dearborn, who taught him biology, as "a good-natured kid, great to be around."

House met his future wife, Melanie, in his senior year and worked several jobs, including as a carpenter at Pepperdine University, before joining the Navy in December 1998. While on leave in June 2000, House returned home to watch his sister graduate from La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks. Then he and his fiancee traveled to Las Vegas and were married by an Elvis impersonator.

"He once told us that Larry and I made him out of love, that the military made him a man and Melanie made him whole," said his mother, Susan, adding that she had no regrets that her son joined the military.

Larry House speaks proudly of recently meeting a Marine wearing a soft cast who had been treated by his son in Fallouja after a bomb crashed a wall upon him. He recounted how physicians later told him it was "Doc House's" immediate care that saved his leg.

More than 500 people attended a memorial ceremony for House on Thursday at the chapel at Naval Station Pearl Harbor. Funeral services and burial are scheduled to be held Feb. 15 at Mount Sinai Memorial Park in Simi Valley.