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think, ‘that damn Cornelison.’ Just about every time we went out, he would try and get me in a fight.
    â€œHe would walk up to the biggest guy he could find and tell him I wanted to fight him. Right away, we would be heading to the bathroom or out in the alley or somewhere to fight, and I didn’t even know the guy.”
    Cornelison knew he was playing with fire. “Brad could kick me and Troy’s ass at the same time,” he says. Kasal played football and was a standout wrestler, gaining a cauliflower ear in the process. He lifted weights constantly and ran for pure pleasure.
    â€œWe used to give him hell,” Cornelison says. “Troy and me were always hitting him or telling him we were going to kick his ass, or getting him in headlocks, and he never did anything to us. I think secretly he liked being a badass, even in junior high school. Brad was very timid and shy when you met him; once you open that door and unleash that beast, look out!”
    Cornelison adds, “He could be one ornery son of a bitch. One time in school Troy and Brad put me in the trash can during break—put my butt in the can and Brad stomped me in until only my head and legs were sticking out. Then put me up on the sink. They did it more than once. Sometimes they would shut the lights off on me too. I would have to tip the trash can off the sink and fall on the floor to get out of it.”
    But Brad Kasal didn’t just hang out with the guys. No one would expect that. Shawn Essy is a lifelong friend and a devoted follower of his Marine career. Back in high school she was Kasal’s confidante and frequent companion. They shared parking spots on the square on summer nights under the big Iowa sky and talked about the future waiting for them. Although they have been separated by thousands of miles since Kasal joined the Corps, they have remained close friends.
TALK ALL NIGHT
    â€œWhen we weren’t working—especially in the summer—we would hang around the square,” Essy remembers. “Brad would be in his Charger—later he had a Cutlass—and I would have my four-door Ford LTD, and we would sit on our hoods and talk and talk all night. Sometimes we would go to Creston and cruise around, but most of the time we hung out in town just talking.”
    Essy says Kasal showed a different side to the girls. “He was different than most of the other boys in Afton. By the time he reached high school Kasal was already confident and self-assured. He was already serious about what he wanted to do and how he intended to get there. He just didn’t let people too close to him until he got to know them. In school he was fairly shy, but out of school he could talk your leg off.”
    Kasal says Essy was one of the few people he was comfortable confiding in. “She was my friend,” he says. “I would tell her things; we were very close. It was a brother-sister thing.”
    Essy now lives with her husband and two sons near Randy Cornelison in Adel. On a shelf in the family room of her well-appointed home is a picture of Brad in formal dress looking boldly into the camera. Behind him are an American flag and the golden battle flag of the Thundering Third. To her two boys, Brad is a real-life, honest-to-God Marine hero, she says. They idolize him and Brad reciprocates with letters and emails letting them know what he is up to.
    His stern countenance in the photograph is a far cry from the Brad she grew up with, Essy says. “If I could say one thing that I know we did, it was laugh. Brad could be a complete crack up when he wanted to be, when he got to know someone.”
    Essy’s younger sister Tracey shares her sister’s fondness for their favorite Marine. Tracey remembers how much pride Brad took in the appearance of his car. “Brad’s cars were always in mint condition. His car was his pride and joy and always spotless.He would go about 15 miles an hour when