Joan and Patrick’s son, Marine Lance Corporal Bryan P. Kelly, fell on July 16, 2004 due to injuries received from enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, California.

This was Bryan's second tour in Iraq. His first tour was from February to September 2003; he returned to the States and then returned to the theatre in February 2004.

News

• Not only should the United States have invaded Iraq, but the military also should remain as long as it takes to bring democracy to the country. At least that's what Kelly's mother thinks.
  
  "If we pull out of this, it's like all those men and women died for nothing," said Joan Kelly, 48, who intends to vote for Bush.
  
  She's convinced that Hussein "eventually would have done something to us on our homeland." She said Hussein and Osama bin Laden "are all terrorists, and I don't think any of them are any different from the others." San Diego Union-Tribune, 10/17/04

• "I would like (people) to remember that he put this country above himself," Patrick Kelly said. "He stopped his life to go in the service because of what happened in 9/11. He didn't have to do that. Most of the young men his age didn't do that. He did."
  
  Kelly came from a family of soldiers who served from the Civil War to Vietnam. When he told his parents he wanted to enlist, they encouraged him. Even today, his father said, "I'd give him the same answer."
  
  "I'm very proud of the fact that he was a Marine," Kelly said. "They try to teach their men to be honorable men and to be courageous, and that's exactly what I believe men should be." San Diego Union-Tribune, 8/21/04