It remains unclear just why the four-engine KC - 130, a plane used to refuel others while in flight, struck a mountainside and exploded as it approached an airfield in the town of Shamsi. But to those who knew Winters, there is little doubt that she died a hero. "She was one in a million," says First Lieutenant  Jeni Froehlich, 31, Winters's platoon leader at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego. In 1997 she followed her brother into the Marine Corps. "She had seen me in my uniform," says Matthew Jr., who signed up in 1992," and had seen the prestige that comes with that.."

Winters flourished in the corps, training as a radio operator before being assigned to a unit in Cherry Point, North Carolina. Last winter she re-upped for a second tour of duty and in June transferred to the Marine Wings Squadron at Miramar. There is impressed surpriors with her me-last attitude. " She always wanted to take care of people," says Captain Steven Pacheco, 30, her company commander. When two younger radio men were shipped to Afghanistan last fall, "she worked nonstop for a day and a half to train them," says Lieutenant Froehlich. "I don't think she slept."

Before going overseas, Winters assembled a package of Christmas gifts for her family, among them a coat,gloves and a hat for a 2-year old niece she had never met and a guitar for her father, once a professional musician. "The guitar means the world to me," says Matthew Sr. He will never play duets with his daughter, but he finds some comfort in the knowledge that "she loved what she was doing. She served her country."

The following Marines gave their all on January 9, 2002

Lance Corporal Bryan Bertrand
Gunnery Sergeant. Stephen L. Bryson
Captain Matthew W. Bancroft
Staff Sergeant Scott N. Germosen
Sergeant Nathan P. Hays
Captain Daniel G. McCollum