A Mission family will welcome the body of their fallen Marine on Thursday, after his untimely death last week in a motorcycle crash outside his base in Hawaii.
Several family members of Sgt. Michael Anthony Salinas traveled to Pearl City, Hawaii for a memorial service held by his fellow Marines.
"It doesn't seem real," his brother Aurelio Salinas told Action 4 News.
They will welcome his remains Thursday at 10:10 a.m. at the McAllen-Miller International Airport.
"It’s not going be the same without him," his second brother Eric Salinas said. "To this day I still think it's a nightmare that's going on."
A third brother and Sgt. Salinas’s mother traveled to Hawaii to pick up his body, along with the fallen Marine’s wife.
The two also have an 8-month-old daughter which will now be without a father.
His brothers ask for the community's support to get them through the tough time ahead.
“If they can just pray for us, because this is a tough time that we're going through, and we just need their prayers," Eric added.
The family said they welcome the public to join them is saying goodbye one last time.
"I think that people remember him is, he was always a positive person,” his brother Aurelio concluded. “You'd never see him sad or down, he was always upbeat and joking around.”
Following his arrival on Thursday, the family will go to the Lord & I Funeral Home in Peñitas, where the viewing will take place from 12-9 p.m. on Thursday and Friday.
The services will continue with a mass in Sullivan City on Saturday morning, and his burial at the Los Ebanos Cemetery to follow.
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