‘It is a surreal nightmare to have lost him, but we know he loved being a Marine’
Pfc. Jack Ryan Ostrovsky had a sixth-sense for finding a drive-thru hamburger joint, smiled anytime he put on a uniform and loved hiking, biking, snowboarding, anime and learning about military history and Asian culture.
But if there are three things to remember about Jack, it’s that he was kind, he loved being from Bellingham and he loved being a U.S. Marine, his parents Lynn and Peter Ostrovsky told The Bellingham Herald in an exclusive interview.
“Jack was loyal to the city and state he grew up in, he was loyal to his friends and he was loyal to the Marines,” Lynn said.
Jack, 21, and eight other U.S. service members died July 30 when when a Marine landing craft sank in hundreds of feet of water off the Southern California coast.
Jack was one of 16 aboard an amphibious assault vehicle that was heading back to a Navy ship after a routine training exercise when it began taking on water about a half-mile from Navy-owned San Clemente Island off San Diego, according to a U.S. Marine Corps Facebook post. Other vehicles quickly responded but couldn’t stop the 26-ton, tank-like vehicle from quickly sinking.
Seven other Marines were rescued from the water, the Associated Press reported. All the Marines were attached to the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at nearby Camp Pendleton, and all were wearing combat gear, including body armor and flotation vests.
The vehicle, known as an AAV but nicknamed an “amtrac,” for “amphibious tractor” is used to take Marines and their gear from Navy ships to land.
In addition to Jack, the eight others who died in the incident were: Lance Cpl. Guillermo S. Perez, 20, of New Braunfels, Texas; Pfc. Bryan J. Baltierra, 19, of Corona, California; Lance Cpl. Marco A. Barranco, 21, of Montebello, California; Pfc. Evan A. Bath, 19, of Oak Creek, Wisconsin; U.S. Navy Hospitalman Christopher Gnem, 22, of Stockton, California; Cpl. Wesley A. Rodd, 23, of Harris, Texas; Lance Cpl. Chase D. Sweetwood, 19, of Portland, Oregon; and Cpl. Cesar A. Villanueva, 21, of Riverside, California.
“It is a surreal nightmare to have lost him, but we know he loved being a Marine,” Lynn said.
Bellingham born
Though the Marines listed Jack as being from Bend, Oregon, in the official release of those who died in the incident and Oregon is where he enlisted, Jack was about as Bellingham as Mallards Ice Cream, Boulevard Park and Old City Hall.
Lynn and Peter said they moved to the area from Florida in 1997, and Lynn became pregnant with Jack and his fraternal twin brother, Sam, about a year later.
“They came into the world unexpectedly,” Lynn said. “It was an easy pregnancy, but the boys decided they wanted to come a little early. Instead of 38 weeks, they came at 26, which I was told that in Bellingham, at the time, was the record for earliest twin birth.”
Though doctors warned her that she probably wouldn’t hear any crying because Jack’s lungs weren’t developed enough, Jack showed his resolve right off the bat, crying and screaming, Lynn said. Doctors were able to calm Sam down, and he was born three days later, after Jack and Lynn had both been transferred to a higher-level Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Seattle.
The boys were raised in the South Hill neighborhood, but they grew up on Whatcom County’s trails and were “a product of the Bellingham playgrounds,” Peter said.
With Peter working long hours in federal law enforcement as a supervising special agent with U.S. Customs and later transitioning to the Office of Homeland Security and serving as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Lynn and the boys took on the task of making it to every park in Bellingham.
“It was a beautiful setting for the boys,” said Lynn, who left a job as a flight attendant with Delta Airlines to raise Jack and Sam. “It was right down the street from the South Bay Trail, where they grew up walking, biking and hiking.”
The family even has a copy of a Herald photo of Lynn pushing the boys on bikes up the ramp at the Taylor Avenue Dock shortly after it opened in 2004.
The boys played soccer on what is now Phillips 66 Soccer Park on Northwest Avenue, learned to ski on the slopes of British Columbia and Mt. Baker Ski Area, and loved to play on the forested hillside above Garden Terrace.
Fueling a fascination
In 2008, Peter was named the Deputy Attache to the U.S. Embassy in London, so the family moved there for three years, before returning to Bellingham.
While in London, the boys continued to hike the British countryside, ski and even learned to surf in southwest England. It was actually in Germany where Jack learned to snowboard — “We called it going to the dark side,” Peter said — and fell in love with cruising the slopes.
While overseas, Jack also fed his hunger to learn about history and military battle sites by visiting museums and areas such as the beaches at Normandy, France.
“Jack was always fascinated with being a soldier,” Peter said. “I’m 56, and my influence as a boy ... was watching all the James Bond movies with my friends, and that influenced my career choice. For Jack, all the modern war movies, such as ‘Full Metal Jacket,’ ‘Jar Head’ and ‘Platoon,’ that was the video culture he connected with.”
Helping fuel Jack’s fascination was hanging out with Peter’s co-workers at U.S. Customs — many of whom were former Marines — and going to work with Peter, speaking with the pilots and boat operators and seeing all the equipment.
“His brother enjoyed trains, but Jack gravitated toward the military and weapons,” Lynn said. “He was just wired that way.”
After the family returned to Bellingham and once Jack started attending Sehome High School, he enrolled in a firefighting program at Skagit Valley College.
“When he was in that program, he was all about the gear that they used,” Peter said. “He’d have a big smile any time he got to put his turnout gear on. He loved uniforms and getting to know what all the gear was used for.”
His love for uniforms even extended to the one he wore for the Sehome Marching Band, where he played flute, Peter said.
While at Sehome, Jack and Sam were the youngest players in the Humans vs. Zombies outdoor Nerf game at Western Washington University, and Peter says he remembers them coming home from school, grabbing their gear and heading to the nearby WWU campus, sometimes not returning until sunset.
Jack also left an impression on his teachers while at Sehome.
“I had the great pleasure of having Jack in my math classes,” Sonia Bell, who is now principal at Sehome, said in a statement. “He was a kind and steady force. Jack was very quiet but always thinking, always learning and always willing to keep pushing through a challenge.”
‘Living his dream’
After the boys graduated from Sehome in 2018, Peter retired from federal law enforcement and was named head of security at Central Oregon Community College in Bend, and the family moved to Oregon.
“The boys weren’t happy about leaving,” Lynn said. “Bellingham was their home, and they wanted to be close to their friends. But Bend isn’t too far away, and we told them their friends could visit.”
Jack got a job and started taking classes at the college and joined the Army ROTC program at the school.
That experience was enough for Jack to decide he wanted to join the Marines, and he said he wanted to be in the infantry, “because that’s something that you can’t do in the civilian world,” Peter remembered.
He enlisted 11 months after moving to Bend and waited for his opportunity to go to boot camp, utilizing the time to research what to expect and prepare physically.
“He knew what was coming,” Peter said. “He knew it wasn’t going to be easy, and his whole mental strategy going into boot camp was just to make it through meal to meal.”
Communication with his family during boot camp was limited to “old school” hand-written letters, Peter said, but Jack took it an extra step and drew pictures of things he was doing — where patches should be worn, what movements they were working on and what the rifle range looked like.
“We kept all his drawings, and he was happy to see them all after the fact,” Lynn said. “All graduates will tell you they wouldn’t go back, but I think he enjoyed reliving it through those drawings.”
Jack, who turned 20 during boot camp, graduated Aug. 30, 2019, then returned to Bend for 10 days of leave before serving five days in a Bend recruiting station.
“I think he really enjoyed that,” Peter said. “He’d get to wear his ... Class A (uniform) and help out, and he had such a huge smile during that time. He was living his dream.”
He even made a quick trip up to Bellingham, before returning to Camp Pendleton for infantry training.
Semper Fi
Jack wanted to become a rifleman, Peter said, and he ultimately received that designation in infantry training, earning a rifle expert badge in the process before graduating in November.
That graduation and Jack’s resulting assignment ended up being extra special for the Ostrovsky family.
“My father is still alive at 86 — Jack’s grandfather — he is Russian descent but born in Shanghai, China,” Peter said. “When my father lived in Shanghai, the U.S. Marines in Shanghai were known as the China Marines. My father can remember them in the neighborhood where he lived.
“When Jack graduated from infantry school, he was assigned to 1st Battalion, 4th Marines — the China Marines. It was fortuitous that Jack was assigned to the unit that his fraternal grandfather could remember from when he was a child. That really meant something to us all.”
Jack’s training continued, and he’d regularly send photos of himself with his buddies or his experiences to his parents — usually with his face dirty and almost always with a giant smile.
“He loved the training,” Lynn said. “He loved having something to do and learning about being a Marine.”
Jack became known for his ability to “ruck,” or carry a big pack, Peter said — “probably a result of all the hiking we did when the boys were kids.”
Though his parents told him to explore the world and he looked forward to doing so, he remained fiercely loyal to his roots.
“He identified with Washington state and Bellingham,” Peter said. “His first name patch ... he put an outline of Washington state on the patch. They made him change it to a standard patch, but Jack was so proud of being a Washingtonian.
“When I was in London at the U.S. Embassy — they fly flags of all 50 states at the embassy — they gave me the Washington state flag. Jack had it in his bedroom in Bend, and he wanted it in the barracks at Camp Pendleton, and he had it hanging in his barracks room. He was very much connected to the area.”
Jack even managed to get a 360 Bellingham cellphone number when he switched carriers while at Camp Pendleton.
Jack learned that he was going to be deployed overseas for 10 months on the USS Somerset amphibious transport dock, and the family was excited because the China Marines always did a port of call in Shanghai, Peter said. But when COVID-19 hit, they were told they wouldn’t be going there during this deployment.
“He was still excited to deploy,” Lynn said. “He was excited to train for the deployment. He was excited to take a picture on the deck of the Somerset.”
Jack was even supposed to be promoted to Lance Corporal while on the Somerset.
“Unfortunately, he didn’t make that promotion,” Peter said, as Jack was training for the deployment when tragedy struck and took his and eight other service members’ lives.
‘He was a Marine’
Make no doubt about it, Jack was a patriot and he loved serving his country, his parents said. You had to look no further than the American flag bandanna he wore just about everywhere he could, including on a Memorial Day hike up Pilot Butte in Bend, carrying his gear and ammo cans to honor fallen soldiers — a hike he shared on his Facebook page.
“He wanted to be a Marine, he was a Marine, and this was it for him,” Lynn said. “He was going to make a career out of being a Marine.”
And the Marines have “been very stand up” following the tragedy, Lynn said, keeping the family informed on the latest from California and guiding them through the whole process, even assigning a representative to them the whole way.
“We know there is going to be a massive investigation and it’s going to take time,” Peter said. “With so many Marines losing their lives and being a federal investigator, I know it’s going to be a while. ... At some point, we’re looking forward to meeting Jack’s Marine friends and hearing their stories about Jack and the time they shared.”
Lynn said she’s even looking forward to one day meeting the other members of the vehicle who were saved, “giving them a hug and hopefully talking to them.”
Peter said the family is flying to California this weekend to attend a memorial that is planned by a veterans group at Camp Pendleton’s Del Mar Beach, and hopes to meet some people while they’re there. The family is then flying to Dover, Delaware, for the “ramp” ceremony, when Peter said the service member’s bodies will be transferred to Mortuary Affairs for a medical investigation.
The Unit Memorial is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 21 at Camp Pendleton, Peter said.
The town Jack considered his home won’t forget him anytime soon, either.
Peter said a group of his friends held a memorial walk in honor of Jack last week along the South Bay Trail where he had grown up and laid a wreath in Jack’s honor in Bellingham Bay.
The family is tentatively planning to hold an official memorial service for Jack along the Bellingham waterfront, according to Peter, but no date has been set.
Peter’s former Whatcom County coworkers are starting an effort to memorialize Jack, the outstanding young man he was and his service to our country with a bench in Bellingham. Organizers said they are currently working with the Bellingham Parks and Recreation Department to determine where the bench will be placed.
Donations can be made through WECU with checks made payable to “In The Memory of Jack Ostrovsky” with the memo line stating “The Jack Ostrovsky Memorial Fund” or checks can be mailed to P.O. Box 9750, Bellingham, WA 98227. Donations can also be made through Venmo account ID: Jacks-memorial-fund.
“A great young man who loved his country and was committed to serving it,” Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo, who is a friend of the Ostrovsky family, wrote in an Aug. 4 Facebook post. “Prayers for the wonderful Ostrovsky family for the loss of their son and brother, Jack, as well as for the families of the other Marines and the Sailor who were lost.”
This story was originally published August 9, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
