Homecoming honors for late Petaluma Marine

Cpl. Skyler James has returned home.

James was the 23-year-old Marine Corps aviation mechanic from Petaluma who died in North Carolina last month after lightning struck the airplane he and fellow Marines were working on.

His remains arrived after sundown Friday at the Sonoma County Airport, accompanied by Marine Sgt. Bob Gohsler.

When the Alaska Airlines flight touched down, there waited a somber and respectful crowd of family members, friends, military comrades, Coast Guardsmen, Sonoma County deputy sheriffs, strangers who wished to show their respectss and motorcycle escorts from the Patriot Guard, American Legion and Rip City Riders.

Windsor firefighters stood at attention alongside their vehicles, one a ladder truck displaying a large American flag.

Skyler James was renowned for the joy he derived from helping others, his subtle humor, his pranks and his extreme dedication to his work as a Marine.

He grew up grew upgrew up in Petaluma with his mother, Robin James, a nurse at Petaluma Valley Hospital, and enlisted in the Corps three years ago.

He was at New River Air Station in Jacksonville, North Carolina.C., on July 11 and working on a tilt-rotor MV-22 Osprey, when a lightning storm approached. He’d directed fellow Marine mechanics to exit the aircraft and was in the process of leaving it it when lightning struck it.

James had been declared brain-dead when loved ones from Petaluma, among them his mother and his wife, Callie Johnston, agreed that he’d want his vital organs to be donated. Eight of his organs went to patients on waiting lists.

The motorcade accompanying his remains wended its way Friday night to the Coast Guard’s training station west of Petaluma , where he was bid farewell with military honors on Saturday.