Beyond sad:Former Duke baseball player killed in Iraq

Former Duke Athlete 1st Lt. Matthew Lynch Killed In Iraq

Lynch Was A Baseball Player And Swimmer At Duke

Nov. 2, 2004

Former Duke baseball player and swimmer Matthew Lynch, 25, a 1st Lt. and member of Pendleton's 2nd Battalion, 5th Regiment, was killed early Sunday by a roadside bomb in Ramadi, a Sunni Muslim area west of Baghdad, Iraq, where U.S. forces have been clashing with insurgents for weeks.

Lynch served with the 1st Marine Division, 1 Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and was serving his third tour of duty in Iraq. He was one of the first Americans deployed to Iraq in March 2003.

He returned to Camp Pendleton in August, but was sent back in March 2004 with a different battalion to fill in for officers who had been evacuated because of injuries. He returned uninjured in July and volunteered to go to battle for a third time when his original battalion was scheduled to redeploy in Iraq.

Lynch did not have to go back for a third time, but as his brother, Tim Lynch, 27, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq told the New York Daily News, "It's hard to understand if you're not in the military. When it's people you look at as your brothers, it's a pretty easy decision to go back there."





At Duke, Lynch was a member of the swimming and diving team for two years (1997-98 and 1998-99) before shifting his focus to the baseball team for the 1999 and 2000 seasons.

He owned the best time among Duke swimmers in the 200 freestyle as a freshman, when he also posted the second-best time in the 100 freestyle. At the ACC Championships that season, he had the team's best performance in the 200 individual medley. As a sophomore, he held season time records in the 200 freestyle, 200 individual medley and was part of the 200- and 400-freestyle relay teams that held Duke season time records, as well.

On the baseball field, he played in 10 games and started two in 1999, finishing with three hits and two RBI while hitting .273 as a back-up catcher. In 2000, Lynch played in 30 games for the Blue Devils, starting 13 and amassing 13 hits, seven RBI and a .217 batting average.

"Matt was a tough, hardworking young man that represented all that is good about intercollegiate athletics," Duke Director of Athletics Joe Alleva said. "Our deepest sympathy goes out to his family."

Lynch enlisted in the Marines shortly after graduating from Duke in 2001. He completed officers training in December 2002 and was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant.