Hundreds attend funeral of fallen Oklahoma Marine corporal

Sunday, November 27th 2005, 3:15 pm

By: News On 6

APACHE, Okla. (AP) _ More than 350 family members and friends said their final goodbyes to a Marine corporal who was the sunshine of his mother's life and a source of pride for his father.

Funeral services for 20-year-old Joshua J. Ware were held Friday in Apache at the Comanche Community Center.

Ware and three other Marines, including another Oklahoman, were killed in a November 16 ambush in Ubaydi, Iraq.

Ware was born at the US Public Health Service Indian Hospital in Lawton and attended school at Apache as a child.

He graduated from Roland High School in eastern Oklahoma, where he played football and baseball, and ran track.

A year before Ware graduated from high school, he signed up to be a Marine.

Ware, who was an American Indian, was the first Comanche or Kiowa to die in combat since 1968 during the Vietnam War.