Honor your hero with thoughts, memories, images and stories.
PROVIDENCE, RI, US
U.S. Marine Corps
LCPL,2D BN, 9TH MAR (I MEF FWD) 2D MAR DIV, CAMP LEJEUNE, NC
04/12/2012, HELMAND PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN
“His whole dream was to become a Marine,” said Lance Corporal Tarwoe’s uncle, Adam Kar, who raised Abraham after the family fled the civil war in Liberia. Kar thanked the Marine Corps for helping Abraham achieve his dreams. “You made a man out of my little boy.”
Abraham attended West Side High School in Newark, New Jersey. He joined the Marine Corps in 2009 and was promoted to Lance Corporal in August of 2010. Lance Corporal Tarwoe was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force in Camp Lejeune, N.C. He leaves behind his wife, Juah Kelly, and their 18-month-old son. The family is worried about how Lance Corporal Tarwoe’s death will affect his son in the future. “It’s hard because he’s just a little kid,” Kar said. “He’s going to be growing up. He’s going to want his dad around, and I guess someone will have to explain to him what happened. So it’s going to be really tough.”
Lance Corporal Tarwoe’s family described him as a great man with a wonderful sense of humor.
“He was very funny,” said his brother, Randall Kar, “and he always kept everyone laughing, and he was just a really good person.”
US Marine Corps Corporal Michael Wiles, of Willingboro, N.J., escorted the remains of fellow Marine and best friend, Lance Corporal Abraham Tarwoe of Providence, Rhode Island to Flehla, Liberia for burial. Lance Corporal Tarwoe was born in Liberia.
Remembering Abraham:
In 1998, during the Liberian civil wars, U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Abraham Tarwoe, then age 12, fled the violence of his home country, searching for peace in Providence, RI.
“For many reasons, he didn’t want to leave Liberia, he had his friends and his life, but he saw the opportunity that existed in the U.S., so he went,” Tarwoe’s uncle said. “We all saw the potential that existed for him in the United States.”
“His whole dream was to become a Marine,” said the uncle who raised him after the family fled the civil war in Liberia. His uncle thanks the Marine Corps continuously “for helping him achieve his dreams.”
In a service befitting his status as a hero, Tarwoe was laid to rest with full military honors in his home village of Flehla, Bong County, Liberia, on May, 17, 2012.
“Family was very important to him, so he made it clear that if he were to die, he wanted his body to come back to where he was born,” said the family representative. “We have a family cemetery, and he wanted to continue to be a part of the family when he passed away.”
Abraham Tarwoe was a 25-year-old Providence Marine who died April 12, 2012 from wounds he suffered during combat operations in Afghanistan. Tarwoe was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force in Camp Lejeune, N.C. He leaves behind his wife and their 18-month-old son.