Former Ohio man is killed in Iraq

He went to Iraq for a good cause, his father said.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- For the seven months Lance Cpl. Joseph L. Nice was in Iraq, his grandmother joked that if he ever got shot, it would be in the backside.
"Whenever he'd hide ... his backside would show," Mary Sneed said of her grandson, who grew up in Ohio. "Every time he called, I'd say, 'How's the backside?' and then we'd go from there. And he'd say, 'Grandma, I have company. Please.'"
All Sneed knows about Nice's death is that he was shot and killed.
The Department of Defense said Nice, 19, died because of enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, on Wednesday. The Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif., where he was based, wouldn't give further details. Capt. Chad Walton said two other Marines, including one from Nice's unit, were also killed Wednesday in Al Anbar Province.
His dream
Nice had long wanted to join the Marines like both grandfathers and an uncle. His father, Lloyd Nice III, of Newark, Ohio, served in the Army.
"He's the only one that didn't come back home," said Sneed, his maternal grandmother who lives in suburban Nicoma Park.
Nice enlisted in the Marine Corps on June 10, 2003, and trained in San Diego before joining a Twentynine Palms-based battalion as an ammunition man, the Marine Corps said.
Nice was deployed to Iraq in February and likely would have returned to the United States in September with his unit, Walton said.
He talked often of joining the military when he was growing up in Ohio, his father said.
"I believed in what he went there for. He was there to defend our country and to save some innocent lives," said Lloyd Nice III. "I back my son up all the way. He went there for a cause, and it was a good cause."
Life in high school
Joseph Nice left Ohio in 1998 to live with his mother, Marilyn Nice, of Prague, Okla.
He played trumpet, was learning the drums, drew landscapes and played many sports. He enlisted right after high school, his father said.
"He fulfilled his dream," he said. "He stood his ground on what he wanted out of life."
He made straight A's, paid for his own car and clothes and cooked for his grandmother, Sneed said.
"I mean this in a good way, but he was a nerd -- very polite, very easygoing," she said.
Nice was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, for serving in the military while the country is at war; the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, for serving overseas; and the War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, for serving in the war on terrorism. Nice also is survived by two brothers and three sisters in Oklahoma and two half-sisters in Ohio from his father's second marriage.