By Lolita Long Editor, New York 
Vivian Martinez, aunt, weeps for her dead nephew. - Leslie Barbour Photo
New York:
"HE DIED in the desert, in a canal. In the desert in Iraq...he died in the desert, in a canal." She mumbled the words over and over in disbelief, unable to put the desert and a canal in the same context. And then the tears welled in her eyes.
Martha Elizabeth Smart Holder looked to the ceiling in a vainless attempt to keep the tears rolling down her cheeks. She bit her lips, and stumbled to the chair.
She allowed one photograph to be taken of her, but was too emotional to speak of her son, Lance Cpl. William White, 24, of the 3rd Amphibious Assault Battalion of the Marines 1st Division, who died last week in the United States-led war in Iraq. I waited for her to compose herself, but the pain in her room was as real as the yellow ribbons and the yellow roses that stood in a vase behind her. It was hard, even for a stranger, not to shed a tear in sympathy.
She had been released from the Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan the day before and seemed unsure of what to do. She is heartbroken! She didn't want her son to go to Iraq and tried to prevent him from going, but White insisted that he wanted to go as he was no fake marine, and had been in training for four years.
Military reports say Lance Cpl. White drowned in Iraq after his military Humvee rolled into a canal.
I was encouraged not to call his father, Mark White, who lives in Long Island.
"William was his only son and he is taking the death real badly," said William White's aunt, Vivian Martinez, filling in the missing blanks. "He served in the Gulf War and to lose his son in another Gulf war ..." she trailed off.
"We are in shock, we don't even know for sure what happened in Iraq. They (referring to army personnel) came and told us what had happened, and asked us to sign some papers and left. We have not heard from them since. We don't know where the body is as yet, we don't know when there will be a funeral. We don't know if he will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery (where military dead are usually buried) or if we will have a funeral in Brooklyn," Mrs. Martinez said.
She, however, said that she would prefer if he gets the official funeral at Arlington in Virginia.
While there is that degree of uncertainty about a young American, the first soldier from the New York area to die in the Iraqi war, Martinez was quick to point out that the family has a Jamaican heritage.
"We have Jamaican-Honduran legacy," she said proudly.
That legacy started with grandfather Hancel Smart, who left Four Paths, Clarendon, in the 1920s and went to Honduras to work with the United Fruit Company as an engineer.
"He was about 14 or 16 years old we were told," she said. And to underscore the point she was making, she added, "we still have uncles and other relatives in Clarendon."
Those relatives included a Bishop Lascelles Smart, "Uncle Bibs" who still conducts church matters in Clarendon. "My father came from Jamaica, met my mother in Honduras, and they got married, had five children, me (Vivian), Hancel Jr., Rita, Martha and Edmond who died. My father wanted to spend his last days in Jamaica and returned home until his death about five years ago," she said. "He is buried right there in Jamaica. "Uncle Bibs used to live in England for years and returned to his homeland years ago. We have other uncles, like Uncle Tatt, and cousins in May Pen and Beckford Falls and aunt Ethylyn Smart all in Clarendon, and some relatives like Eulett and Prince Bailey in Beverly Hills and Red Hills," she boasted as she traced the connection. The young William White was to have been discharged in February but the impending war then changed those plans. His mother placed a yellow ribbon on their door when he was shipped out in January from Camp Pendleton, California.
Wednesday, there were several yellow ribbons on the porch, along with a framed photographs of White in his military uniform and framed Bible verses. He was regarded as a model young man, who married his girlfriend Michelle, two weeks after the September 11, tragedy. Michelle lives in California. He was baptised last year, and was a member of the youth choir of the St. Thomas Episcopal Church, served as an altar boy, and even participated in drama productions.
His closest cousin, Althea Russell, said that they both played Joseph and Mary in one production.
In a room filled with cousins and uncles, and other relatives, younger brother Bryan Holder, 16, got a letter on March 12 that was written on March 1 by William. It arrived in Brooklyn on March 29, a day after his death in Iraq. The family is holding onto that letter. In it William encouraged his brother to "Trust in the Heavenly Father." He also enclosed US$100 to help pay for a cell phone bill. "If you have already paid the bill, keep the dough anyway," part of the letter said. William's other brother, Charles Holder, 18, later tries to make light of the situation.
"You want me to take picture in this kind of clothes? I don't want my relatives in Jamaica to see me like this," he said.
"Like what?"
"Like this, in this jacket."
"Unless you are hiding from somebody," I attempted to joke. He posed for the picture nonetheless.
