ASHLAND, Ky. — Four Marines who died in a helicopter crash Friday night while on a training mission in Norway.

One of the four Marines was Cpl. Jacob Moore of Catlettsburg, Kentucky. He was only 24. 

What You Need To Know

  • Four Marines died in a crash Friday night during a training flight in Norway

  • 24-year-old Jacob Moore was one of the casualties

  • Moore was from Catlettsburg attended Boyd County High School

  • Moore was described as having a kind soul, and remembered as someone who left a positive impact on the community

Christy Ford, a teacher at Boyd County, never thought she would have to remember a student passing so early in life.

“I’m really kind of sad that I have to remember him. But he was kind. And I know that’s something that you hear a lot about people who’ve left us, but Jacob was kind,” Ford said.

Moore graduated from Boyd County High School in 2016, where Ford had said she had the honor of being his English teacher.

“We get to watch kids develop into the adults into the human beings that they’re going to become and I don’t think that there’s another relationship like that outside of the home,” Ford said.

Ford says Moore was was quiet, but never afraid to stand up for the underdog. All qualities she believes made him the perfect Marine. 

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“It would translate pretty easily that he would be the guy that would be in charge of a bunch of guys on a helicopter,” Ford said.

Moore joined the Marine Corps in 2018, and Ford says scrolling online and reading the comments, she’s reminded of the positive impact Moore had on his former classmates.

“There wasn’t a finer fella. We all really are a family no matter what, praying for his family,” Ford said.

Kind to his friends, respected his elders and good to his community, Ford says it’s a loss that will affect everyone who knew him.

“I hope that the community at large would recognize not only the loss that we’ve suffered but also what a gift he was to begin with. Because he was just a good citizen and a fine young man,” Ford said.

As a model life to live by, Ford says it’s Moore’s legacy of kindness she will continue telling students for years to come.

According to the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, the Marines are being returned to the United States to be reunited with their families. The other Marines killed in the crash were Capt. Matthew J. Tomkiewicz of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Capt. Ross A. Reynolds of Leominster, Mass. and Gunnery Sgt. James W. Speedy of Cambridge, Ohio. The cause of the crash is under investigation.