Crowds line streets to honor US Navy SEAL killed in Iraq

(AP) — Thousands of people — including motorcycle-riding combat veterans, schoolchildren waving flags and mothers with strollers — lined the streets of this military town Friday as the funeral procession of a Navy SEAL killed in Iraq passed by on its way to a national cemetery.

The crowd stood in somber 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.

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.

For the procession carrying Keating's remains, thousands of students from the Coronado Unified School District stood and waved flags along nearly seven blocks leading to the Navy base, said Maria Johnson, executive assistant of the superintendent.