Fallen Marine's family gathers to celebrate, mourn

There's been one barbecue after another since Marine Staff Sgt. Faoa L. Apineru's family learned of his death July 2.

Apineru, 31, loved to cook and eat and so does his extended family from Western Samoa. This week, before he is buried Friday, his siblings and others have been celebrating Apineru's life, remembering him in a way they say he would have wanted.

"He challenged me to a barbecue," his brother Selemaea Apineru said Wednesday about a recent culinary salvo.

That's not to say the 10-year Marine veteran's family is taking the news of his passing lightly. There have been plenty of tears shed since Apineru was seriously wounded in Iraq back in May 2005.

Apineru was patrolling the northern border of Iraq during his second tour there when a roadside bomb exploded near him. Wounds he received to his head left him with what relatives say were traumatic brain injuries, which included severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), extreme memory loss, frequent nightmares and a lot of emotional distress.

He was unable to live on his own and died at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System Hospital in California. Apineru was known as "the mayor" at the hospital because of his kind treatment of everyone there.

But when the PTSD was at its worst, Apineru would literally try to attack people who merely looked like the enemy, or "jihadists," as his brother put it. The disorder was so bad he had difficulty distinguishing between nightmares and reality.

The tough Marine who smiled a lot even called Selemaea once to say he feared he might hurt is own mother.

On July 2, Tiute Apineru was in Seattle for a wedding when she woke up around 2:30 a.m., certain she had just heard her son's voice calling for her. Later that day, a Marine gave her the sad news that VA Hospital medical workers had tried unsuccessfully to revive her son, who was found without a pulse.

Apineru became the 43rd person with Utah ties to die as a result of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The exact cause of death is unknown, Selemaea said, but family members are attributing it to the injuries he received in Iraq.

"I feel pain and hurt," Tiute said with Selemaea translating. "I feel suffering as a mother."

With her next breath, however, Apineru's mother said she is happy because her son is finally at peace.

Outside of a sister's apartment on Independence Boulevard in Salt Lake City, Apineru's soft-top convertible Cadillac is parked by the curb. Inside the apartment, Selemaea turns on his brother's cell phone, which shows a screen with the words, "Thank God I'm alive."