Max A. Galeai

Lt. Col. Max A. Galeai and other were meeting with Iraqi tribal and government leaders when a suicide bomber dressed as a security officer detonated explosives, killing Galeai and 19 others.

He left behind his wife, son, three daughters, and the 1,000 Marines he commanded.

Galeai was a widely leader of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment.

He also was devoted to his family and his Samoan heritage, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported. Galeai, growing up in a Navy family, had followed in the footsteps of his father, the newspaper reported.

Galeai, 42, of Pago Pago, American Samoa graduated from Oregon State University before joining the Marines.

"He was a great role model," Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann told the newspaper. "It's a loss not only felt in American Samoa, but by Samoans everywhere."

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