Injured local Marine contemplates future

Lance Cpl. Richard ``Ricky'' Paul Turner wanted to be a policeman before he left for Iraq.

As the Marine recovers from wounds at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., the 21-year-old Akron Firestone High School graduate still holds onto those dreams.

But he worries that his injuries -- scores of shrapnel wounds that resulted in the loss of his right eye and feeling in his right foot -- could prevent him from going into police work.

Turner was wounded Aug. 1 near Hit, Iraq, when a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle that killed another Marine, Sgt. James R. Graham III, of Coweta, Okla., and injured two others.

The four were searching for Cpl. Jeffrey Boskovitch of Seven Hills, whose father, James, lives in Cuyahoga Falls, when their Humvee was hit by the explosion, Turner's mother, Lori, said.

Boskovitch and five other snipers, including Tallmadge resident Lance Cpl. Daniel Nathan Deyarmin Jr. -- all Marine reservists -- were killed Aug. 1 in Iraq, the same day Turner was wounded.

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