DENVER, CO, USA U.S. Marines LCPL, WPNS CO, 1ST LAR BN, 1ST MAR DIV, (RCT-2, 2D MAR DIV), CAMP PENDLETON, CA BALAD, IRAQ 11/08/2005
Lance Corporal Tamburello was killed November 8, 2005 by an IED while conducting combat operations near Rutbah, Iraq.
Kevin Tamburello unbuttoned his red flannel shirt Tuesday to reveal a torn, well-worn T-shirt his son Jeremy gave him last summer.
It reads: “My Son. One of the few, the proud, a Marine.” “He bought it for me just before he graduated,” Tamburello said.
Early Tuesday, a Marine in a crisp uniform went to the door of Tamburello’s mobile home to inform him that his son had been killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. He was 19.
Jeremy Paul Tamburello joined the Marines after graduating from high school in 2004. He wanted to further his education, his father said. He was assigned to the 1st Light Armor Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, California. Tamburello’s parents say they didn’t want him to enlist, but it was his passion for helping people that led him to the military.
“He was a very noble, very compassionate, very brave man.and he died a very horrible death,” said Kevin Tamburello, Jeremy’s father. “He knew that he was going to have to go to Iraq and he knew that he might die but he went anyway.”
Tamburello had been in Iraq for three months when he was killed. The last time he spoke with his parents was on Halloween when he called to say he’d just received a letter they’d sent. Tamburello was a 2004 graduate of Ranum High School in Adams County. High school employees told reporters Jeremy was an office assistant at the school last year. One secretary remembered him as a shy boy who had a great sense of humor.