Timothy Louis Ryan, a music major in college, joined the Marines to play percussion in the U.S. Marine Drum and Bugle Corps, an elite ensemble also known as The Commandant�s Own. Judith Ryan said her son loved traveling with the corps to Paris and all over the United States.

He also found a new love in the Marines: flying. This was something of a surprise to his mother.

�He said he would love to fly things, but when he was a kid he said he would like to be a chef, too, so who knew?� she said.

Ryan, 30, of Aurora, Ill., was one of four Camp Pendleton Marines who died May 19 when their CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter went down in the Shatt al Hillah Canal shortly after takeoff. It had been on a resupply mission in support of civil-military...