For 23 years, Erica Rios-Corbin kept part of her husband's ashes with her in Indiana, unable to find him a permanent resting place. That changed this month when Marine Sgt. Duane Rios, a Griffith High School graduate killed in Iraq in 2003, was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery just ahead of Veterans Day.
The Griffith Town Council marked the moment with Resolution 2026-1111, unanimously adopted to honor what it called the life and sacrifice of a hometown Marine, according to citizenportal.ai. The resolution describes Rios as a Griffith High School graduate who served with the 1st Marine Division and says he deployed to Iraq and made the ultimate sacrifice on April 4, 2003. It also states that his funeral and interment at Arlington National Cemetery would occur on November 6, 2026.
Rios and Erica met at Griffith Junior Senior High School in the 1990s, and the two married in Las Vegas before he enlisted, according to CBS News Chicago. He joined the Marines a year after graduating in 1996, per Military Times, which also reports that he and Erica were living at Camp Pendleton, California, when they learned about the September 11 terrorist attacks.
From Okinawa to a Firefight Outside Baghdad
Rios deployed to Okinawa, Japan, in December 2001 and returned home in December 2002, per the CBS Chicago report. He was home for only seven weeks before his unit joined thousands of Marines headed to the Middle East. A few weeks into that deployment, he called Erica by satellite phone, the outlet reports.
Rios was assigned to the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division, out of Camp Pendleton, Military Times notes. Accounts of his death conflict: Military Times reports he died April 4, 2003, during a firefight on the edge of Baghdad and lists his age as 25, while The Times of Northwest Indiana reported he was 24 and was killed in combat on April 3 in Baghdad. CBS Chicago's reporting describes him as shot and killed by a sniper in Iraq.
Funeral services were held on Saturday, April 19, 2003, at St. Mary Church in Griffith, according to The Times of Northwest Indiana. The American Red Cross helped cover a round-trip airline ticket and lodging so Rios's mother could attend, the newspaper's 2003 report states.
A Promise Kept Decades Later
Before he died, Rios told Erica he wanted to be cremated and taken with her, and his ashes returned to Northwest Indiana with his widow, the station's report notes. Erica went on to remarry and start a family, and later became the first full-time social worker embedded with law enforcement in Northwest Indiana, now working at the Griffith Police Department. She has said that connecting people with services such as food and help with electric bills matters beyond crime.
It was Erica's current husband who suggested finding Duane a permanent resting place at Arlington National Cemetery, according to the same account. Arlington approved the burial in time for Veterans Day, and Erica and Sgt. Anthony Stabolito, who flew in from Phoenix, escorted Duane's ashes to his gravesite. Fellow service members attended the burial, and the ceremony included a specially made coin marking his final resting place.
Erica kept part of Duane's remains with her in Indiana even as the rest were laid to rest at Arlington, the report indicates. She has said his burial closes a chapter that had been open for 23 years, with Veterans Day falling on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, giving the long-delayed homecoming its timing.
