BEARER OF SAD NEWS MARINE ASSIGNED TO NOTIFY FAMILIES OF DEATHS.

Byline: Rachel Uranga Staff Writer

ENCINO - Despite more than two decades in the Marines - commanding troops on the front lines and losing a close friend on the battlefield - Sgt. Charles Dillree says his current assignment is the toughest he's ever had.

After donning his blue dress uniform, the career Marine has to knock on the doors of strangers and tell them their husbands or wives, sons or daughters have been killed.

``The families aren't fooled. They know the minute they see a Marine in a blue uniform and a priest at their door. The only thing they can hope for at that point is that their son was injured,'' said Dillree of Palmdale.

``You want to do anything physically possible to take away the pain.''

He had to deliver the news to the family of Cpl. Christopher Gibson, 23, of Simi Valley, who was killed April 18 when his unit was ambushed near the Syrian border.

And to the parents and wife of Marine Pfc. Eric Ayon, 26, of Arleta, who died April 9 during a fierce gunbattle in the Anbar province of Iraq.

He can remember the day he delivered the news about Ayon.

His hands were clenched, his expression somber and his mind trained on the moment. He suppressed the thoughts racing through his head - his own father dying when he was 23 years old, his best friend killed during Operation Desert Storm.

``May I come in?'' he asked.

It's standard procedure, Dillree said, not to notify the family at their front door. And during moments like this, he must stick to standards - stay focused, strong and in a small way absorb their pain.

So he asks a mother or a father whether he can come in, and then says the last words they ever wanted to hear.

``I am sorry to inform you that your son was killed in action,'' he tells them.

Then, as procedure goes, he provides a brief description of the Marine's initial death report. The information is usually sparse, and the family has more questions than the casualty officer has answers.

``I have seen it, the disbelief and the anger that the Marines could have let this happen,'' he said. ``Each one, it has not gotten any easier.''

During his two years as a casualty assistance officer, Dillree has had to make death notifications for four Marines - Ayon and Gibson, and two others killed in accidents.

And as the Iraq war wears on, he reluctantly admitted, he expects he'll have to make other notifications to families living in the San Fernando Valley and surrounding areas.

The worst moments for him are during the trip to a family's home. Traffic zips by. A blur of people comes in and out of shops and restaurants. The noise of the world is not slowing down for anybody's harrowing pain, and here he is, waiting to deliver it.

``The hardest was sitting at a house in uniform with a Marine's brother and niece, waiting for the youngest daughter to come home from Disneyland,'' Dillree said. ``It was sheer torture.''

In the Marines, casualty officers not only inform the family of the death, but help them make funeral arrangements and process life insurance policies and other military forms.

Although some Marines volunteer for casualty assistance duty, it usually is assigned as part of other duties. A daylong course trains them how to fill out paperwork and the procedures in dealing with grieving families.

``Not everyone can do this,'' said Bryan Driver, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Casualty Assistance Branch, based in Quantico, Va.

Each branch of the military has its own casualty-assistance program to handle the death notifications for those among its ranks.

``To be honest, all you need to be is a person that is caring and to be there to assist and not hinder the situation,'' said Army Staff Sgt. Eric Malone of Sylmar.

He learned that lesson the hard way, walking the DiRaimondo family of Simi Valley through funeral arrangements for Michael DiRaimondo, a 22-year-old medic who was killed Jan. 8 in a helicopter crash near Fallujah, Iraq. When Malone arrived at the family's house, he had just been told when DiRaimondo's remains would be flown home.

``I kept referring to him as the body, when the body would be here, until his father told me, 'You can call him Michael,''' Malone said.

Tony DiRaimondo's kind words in response to his unwitting blunder put Malone at ease in a situation that can never truly be softened.

``You try to comfort them for their loss, but how can you comfort them?''

Rachel Uranga, [phone]

rachel.uranga(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Marine Sgt. Charles Dillree, right, salutes as Sgt. Eric Espinoza holds a folded flag at a memorial service this month in Newhall.

(2) Marine Sgt. Charles Dillree, right, talks to a priest at a memorial service at Eternal Valley Memorial Park in Newhall.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer