Pasadena Star-News
LOS ANGELES — Hundreds of cops, Marines and family members gathered in downtown Los Angeles Tuesday to honor Marine Corps Reserve Sgt. Maj. Robert “RJ” Cottle, an LAPD SWAT officer and Whittier native killed last month in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan.
Photo Gallery: Memorial service for Robert J. Cottle
A funeral procession with Cottle’s casket wound through the streets to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angeles to honor the the first LAPD officer killed in Afghanistan, who received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.
Cottle was an “adrenaline junkie from the get-go” who found his niche as a public servant when his parents Kenneth Cottle and Janet Deck sent him to Marine camp at age 15, said his sister Bonnie Roybal.
“He was always challenging himself, always wanting to do more things,” said Sgt. Maj. Paul Hayes, a Marine reservist who also serves in the Santa Ana Police Department. “He died doing what he wanted to do: serving in combat.”
The Marines who served under him in Afghanistan remembered a superior who stayed out in front during military operations and kept up morale by offering them Twinkies and cigars and telling them jokes.
“If he was going to authorize a mission, he was going to be right there with you,” said Sgt. Mark Doucette, who served under Cottle in the operation that killed him at age 45.
Doucette stood shoulder-to-shoulder with LAPD officers to carry Cottle’s casket. Doucette came home early from Afghanistan to be with his wife, who was suffering from complications in her pregnancy.
“He was one of the last guys whose hand I shook when I got on the `bird’ (to come home),” said Doucette. “It’s good to be involved in any way I can.”
Sgt. Chuck Buttitta remembered Cottle as a “focused” police officer, who came to him for the coaching he needed to join LAPD’s elite Metropolitan Division SWAT team 13 years ago.
Family members had been planning Cottle’s homecoming three days before they found out the La Serna High School graduate had been killed during an operation in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.
“It’s just a tragedy. It almost doesn’t seem real. It’s heartbreaking,” said Cottle’s aunt Dawn Fodor, who flew in from Arizona for the service and to meet his wife Emily and his 9-month-old daughter Kaila, who live in Yorba Linda.
Before he deployed the last time, Roybal had a “sister’s sense” that this might be his last deployment. She invited him over for dinner and asked him about his last wishes.
At his request, she sang the national anthem at his service and suggested they play a recording of the Eagles’ “Love Will Keep Us Alive,” a song the siblings used to sing in harmony.
Cottle made a big impression on his neighbors in the four years that he lived in Yorba Linda with his wife.
“He was very friendly and open, even though he was a warrior,” said Susan Purnell.
Purnell and her husband Lee turned out for his service and said they look forward to watching his baby Kaila grow up.
Cottle’s fellow Marines and police officers also said they want to be there for Emily and her baby.
“We want to make sure she knows who her dad was,” said Rick Carloss, a Marine who served under Cottle. “He was a Marine’s Marine, and he had an uncanny ability to inspire you just from his words.”
Cottle’s body will be cremated, and his final resting place will be at Arlington National Cemetery, which will host a service on Friday, Roybal said.
Cottle leaves behind his wife, Emily; his daughter, Kaila; sister Roybal; father Kenneth; and mother Janet Deck.
Copyright 2010 Pasadena Star-News