When off-duty, Marine Staff Sgt. Riayan Tejeda could be found pursuing his other love: salsa and merengue music.
Tejeda, who died Friday while fighting remnants of Iraqi forces in northeast Baghdad, co-owned a nightclub in Bonita called the Caribe, which highlights such music, said friends and family of the man from New York City.
Stationed at Camp Pendleton, Tejeda was 26 and a native of the Dominican Republic who hoped one day to be an American citizen. He joined the Marines after high school and served with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.
His nickname was "Gino," friends said.
"It's a big loss," said his friend, Julio Martinez, who co-owned the nightclub with Tejeda.
He was well-known in the Hispanic and Dominican communities and was a lover and promoter of salsa and merengue music, Martinez said.
Tejeda was the divorced father of two children, ages 4 and 2, said Ed Marrero, a family spokesman in New York.
He had two brothers, and he returned often to New York, Marrero said.
"He was a New Yorker," he said, noting that Tejeda first came to the city as a boy.
He was a Yankees fan. Of course.
Tejeda long had spoken of joining the Marines.
"That's what he liked. That's what he talked about," Marrero said.
When told of his son's death, Riayan Tejeda's father, Julio Tejeda, reflected on how his family had a love for America and for the Dominican Republic.
"This is a night for America to appreciate what the Dominican Republic has done for us," Julio Tejeda said in an article published in the New York Daily News.
Friends were to gather last night at the Bonita nightclub to honor and remember him.
It was not expected to be easy.
"He was a great guy," Martinez said.
Michael Stetz: (619) 542-4570; michael.stetz@uniontrib.com
