Scores in Southern California salute Navy SEAL killed in Iraq

CORONADO (San Diego County) — Thousands of people — including motorcycle-riding combat veterans, schoolchildren waving flags and mothers with strollers — lined the streets of Coronado on Friday to honor the funeral procession of a Navy SEAL killed in Iraq.

The crowd stood in silence and some wiped away tears as the casket of Charles Keating IV was carried out of a Catholic church and driven through seven blocks lined with mourners.

Wearing a baseball cap with “Navy” emblazoned across it, Denise Gallagher, 56, cried as she saw the flag-draped coffin carried by sailors getting loaded into the hearse.

Keating died in a gunbattle with Islamic State fighters May 3, making him the third service member killed in Iraq since U.S. forces returned there in 2014.

At a memorial ceremony attended by more than a thousand people in Coronado on Thursday, Keating was posthumously awarded a Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest combat medal, for his heroic actions during a March battle against Islamic State fighters in Iraq, said Lt. Beth Teach, a spokeswoman for the SEALs.