ROUND ROCK, TX, USA U.S. Marines CPL, WPNS CO, 1ST BN, 23RD MAR, (31ST MEU, 1ST MAR DIV), 4TH MAR DIV, AUSTIN, TX HIT, IRAQ 01/09/2005
Joseph Earl Fite, of Round Rock, Texas, had played the trombone in his high school band and enrolled in the school’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. He wanted to wear the Marine uniform. He knew that the Marines were the elite and the best of the best, and that’s what he wanted to be and that’s what he was. He set a good example for very young Iraqis, so that they could draw good impressions of what Americans are like from their experience with him.
Corporal Joseph E. Fite, 23, of Round Rock, Texas, died on January 9, 2005, in hostile action when a driver crashed through a checkpoint barricade in Anbar province, Iraq, and struck him. He was based in Austin, Texas, with the Marines Reserve 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment.