Fellow servicemen knew him as "Doc."

He called them "his guys."

Here at home, he was known as a caring son and a boy who had grown into a dedicated professional.

Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Mark Russell Cannon of Lubbock died Tuesday in Afghanistan of a gunshot wound to the chest, preliminary reports given to his family indicate.

Cannon, 31, enlisted in the Navy in 2003 and cared for sick and wounded Marines, according to information provided by Navy officials.

Earlier this year, he volunteered to go to Afghanistan with the 3rd Marine Regiment of Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.

He had been in that country since July, said his father, Tom Cannon, also of Lubbock.

The sailor is the second serviceman from the area to die within days in the war on terror. Sgt. Randell Olguin, 24, of Ralls died Sunday from wounds inflicted during an attack on his unit in Baghdad, the Department of Defense announced.

Cannon is the 18th area person to die in the war on terror since 2001 and the fifth to die this year, said Tami Swoboda with the Lubbock Area Foundation, which aids families of fallen military men and women.

Cannon was a 1994 graduate of Coronado High School and was trained as a nurse at South Plains College.

He stood approximately 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighed about 250 pounds. Behind the giant was another side, those who knew him said.

"He had a real tender, soft side to him which went well with his interest in the medical field. He had that manner that could make people feel good," his father said.

This was his son's second tour in a war zone.

Mark's mother, Becky, died of a heart attack in 2006. Six days later, he had to leave his hometown to serve in Iraq, his father said.

Last Christmas, his father, a new widower, went to Hawaii to visit his only child. Bits of his son's tour in Iraq were captured on a video, which he watched.

"(Someone in the video said) 'Here comes Doc. He's as big as an ox and half as smart.' They kidded everyone, but they also had this camaraderie and they all protected their 'docs' because they were so important to their unit. They were the ones with the ability to care for the wounded. That's what he did. And not just for American soldiers, but for Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi police," said Tom Cannon, as the American flag on his lawn blew back and forth in the wind.

The flag is usually there on the lawn. Cannon recently took it down because of heavy winds. He raised it again Tuesday morning after two Navy officers came to his front door to tell him his son, who decided to join the Navy after 9/11, had been killed in an attack.

"9/11 had a large impact on Mark. After 9/11, he really thought he needed to do something in the public service field for his country," his father said from his home, where photographs of his wife and son rest on tables, the wall, the refrigerator.

His son, he explained, grew up around public service.

Tom Cannon was a criminal defense attorney and later a Lubbock County court-at-law judge. Becky Cannon was the founding director of Lubbock Rape Crisis Center.

War, the father noticed, had changed his son, who loved Texas barbecue and Mexican food.

"What I could sense in Mark was that he had a lot less tolerance for people that would whine about trivial things. He saw things in a bigger picture.

"Mark thought, 'We take the war to them or they will be here again,' " his father said.

In their last phone conversation, in early August, Mark told his father that Afghan insurgents were much more sophisticated than those he encountered in Iraq.

He spent most of his time there caring for wounded Afghan children who were marred by shrapnel and mortar attacks, he told his father.

Family friend Kelly Whitman watched Mark grow from a tall, skinny boy who couldn't play high school sports because of a knee injury, to a proud warrior.

"I would tell him all the time, 'It's an honor to know you,' " she said.

"He grew up to be very serious about his job. He cared so very much about his guys. He was their leader. ... His guys in Afghanistan - I feel worse for them than I do for us because they lost their doc," Whitman said.

Corpsman killed in combat

Staff report

A Navy corpsman killed Tuesday in Afghanistan was a “tender giant” and loved the Marines with whom he served, the sailor’s hometown newspaper reported Thursday.

Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Mark R. Cannon, 31, of Lubbock, Texas, died from a gunshot to the chest during combat in Afghanistan, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported, while he was attached to 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division.

The newspaper reported that the 6-foot-5-inch, 250-pound Cannon — whose buddies kidded him for being “as big as an ox but half as smart” — enlisted in the Navy because he came from a family of public servants. Cannon’s father, Tom, was a defense attorney and then a judge, and his mother, Becky, founded a local rape crisis center. She died in 2006, six days before Mark shipped out for Iraq.

Behind Cannon’s imposing size was a “tenderness,” Tom Cannon told the Avalanche-Journal, that made him good at his job.

“He had a real tender, soft side to him, which went well with his interest in the medical field. He had that manner that could make people feel good,” his father said.

Cannon joined the Navy in 2003, his record shows, and had advanced to third class in this year’s spring cycle. His awards included a Purple Heart, a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, and a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.