Ohio sailor killed in Japan was set to retire soon

Published 11:30 am Tuesday, June 20, 2017

CLEVELAND (AP) — Family and friends of a Navy sailor from Ohio say he was just months away from retiring and was thinking about becoming an auto mechanic when he was killed last weekend in a collision between a destroyer and a container ship off Japan.

Fire Controlman 1st Class Gary Leo Rehm Jr., 37 was among seven sailors killed aboard the USS Fitzgerald when a Philippine-flagged container ship collided with it early Saturday. Authorities have declined to speculate on a cause. A delay in reporting the collision is under investigation.

Friends and relatives on Monday described the sailor from Elyria, roughly 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Cleveland, as generous and easygoing. They say the Navy told his mother that Rehm died trying to rescue fellow sailors trapped in flooding compartments on the USS Fitzgerald.

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The Navy didn’t immediately respond Monday to messages seeking comment, and a telephone number for Rehm’s mother in Virginia couldn’t immediately be found.

“When we heard that he ran in and helped save other sailors from drowning, we said that was Gary. That was Gary to a T,” said Rehm’s friend Christopher Garguilo, of Hampton, Virginia. “He never thought about himself.”