A Maryville Marine was killed Sunday in Iraq, exactly one month after he married his wife, who is expecting their first child.
Family Friend Doug Cooper says 23-year-old Sgt. Michael Ferschke Jr., a 2003 Maryville High graduate,was on a door-to-door mission when he was killed.
"The sorrow will be here for a long time, very hard to replace someone like him," Cooper said.
Cooper and his wife, Irene, are close family friends with the Ferschkes.
They watched Michael grow from a mischievous boy with a bright smile into aproud Marine.
"He was an absolute gift to this Earth and now he's gone, and we'll miss him terribly," Irene Cooper said.
Sgt. Ferschke met hiswife, Hota, while stationed in Okinawa, Japan. The two married by proxy exactly one month ago Sunday.
The couple's child is due January. Family friends say that child will be Ferschke's living legacy.
"He got to live the dream that most of us could only ask for," Douglas Coopersaid."He got to do what he wanted to do."
Cooper says the family does not yet know all the details surrounding the Marine's death, nor when Sgt. Ferschke will be arriving home.
In June, hesent home a Father's Day greeting to his father and brother in Blount County, which aired on WBIR-TV and on wbir.com.
