LORAIN — His legs cramping in the scorching Afghanistan heat, U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. David Hall volunteered to sweep for bombs around an abandoned compound in Helmand Province on Aug. 31, 2009.

From left, Lance Cpl. David Hall’s parents, Lulu and Delmar Hall, at the podium, sisters Wendy Dull, Tracey “Terasa” Holmes and Lora Hall attend a ceremony that revealed a sign in his honor. (CT photo by Chuck Humel.)

Hall knew the area around the compound might be booby trapped, but if the Marines couldn’t find a water pump in the compound, two members of Golf Company who had collapsed from heat exhaustion might die. Those two Marines survived, but Hall didn’t.

“My legs are cramped bad, but I’ll go,” were among Hall’s last words before he was killed by a bomb, according to a journal entry from fellow Marine Lance Cpl. Chris Ventura. “Then he looked at me and said, ‘Ventura, reach in my pack and grab my sweeper.’ ”

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Hall’s sister, Lora Hall, on Tuesday read from the journal during a ceremony dedicating a stretch of Interstate 90 west and state Route 2 east in Lorain as David R. Hall Highway. Hall’s family wiped away tears as one of the signs was unveiled during the ceremony at Lakeview Park.

Lora Hall, 41, said her brother’s fateful decision typified his courage and selflessness. Hall was not a gung-ho teenager when he enlisted in 2006. At 28, he had a well-paying job at the Ford plant in Avon Lake and knew the risks.

The Shiite-Sunni civil war in Iraq — where Hall served his first tour of duty training Iraqi police — was full blown when he enlisted and President George W. Bush was about to escalate American involvement. Lora Hall recalled begging her brother to reconsider.

“I said, ‘David, do you understand you could be dead in a year?’” she said. “His only response to me was, ‘This is something I have to do.’ ”

After surviving Iraq, Hall deployed to Afghanistan in June 2009 as part of President Barack Obama’s escalation of the war. Hall’s father, Delmar Hall, said his son believed he was making Afghanistan safer for Afghans, but Americans were increasingly at risk.

“He told me, ‘Dad, this is a big surge,’” said Delmar Hall, 60. “I don’t know if I’m going to make it back or not.”

Since his death, family members said they’ve tried to cope by remembering Hall’s Christian beliefs and positivism.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about you,” said Hall’s sister, Terasa “Tracy” Holmes, 41. “I know that you’re guiding me, pushing me, prodding me, everything that you need to do with my stubborn self.”

Hall was one of 1,657 U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan through Tuesday morning. With the Afghan government mired in corruption and the Taliban resurgent as the war approaches its 10th anniversary next month, Lora Hall said she understands why polls show the majority of Americans support rapid withdrawal. Hall’s mother, Lula Hall, is among them.

“I’m torn, because after losing him I just wonder if the war is doing any good,” said Lulu Hall, 60. “The war’s been going on long enough.”

Nonetheless, Lora Hall believes abruptly leaving an unstable Afghanistan would negate her brother’s sacrifice.

“Tell me how we’ve won, not when we’re going to leave,” Lora Hall said. “Because my brother’s life was sacrificed for that mission.”

Community service

U.S. Marine U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. David Hall’s family is organizing a volunteer effort to refurbish a park on Fairless Drive in Lorain near Southview Middle School. Volunteers will be asked to donate at least four hours time and can sign up through a website that goes online Sunday.

For more information, email Lora Hall at lhall@ieduglobal.com or visit http://serveloraincounty.org.

Contact Evan Goodenow at 329-7129 or egoodenow@chroniclet.com.

ARLINGTON, Texas — Maybe Justin Masterson is wearing down with his unprecedented workload for the Cleveland Indians.

Starting pitcher Justin Masterson delivers to the Texas Rangers Tuesday. (AP photo.)

Or, like so many other pitchers, maybe the right-hander just couldn’t get it done against the AL West-leading Texas Rangers.

Whichever the case, Masterson extended his late-season slide by allowing six runs and eight hits while pitching only one batter into the sixth inning on a 100-degree night in a 10-4 loss at Texas on Tuesday.

David Murphy homered twice and Josh Hamilton went deep against Masterson (11-10), who made his career-high 31st start and has already thrown a career-high 2051⁄3 innings this season. He is 1-3 with a 5.85 ERA over his last five starts, pushing his season ERA to 3.20, the highest it has been since the first week of June.

“Give credit to them,” Masterson said. “They hit a couple good balls. David Murphy was hot tonight. I made some decent pitches and they hit ’em. They’re a good lineup. Any lineup in this park can be tough. For me, I didn’t get ahead or have command of the strike zone. They were sniffing out heaters and I come with a lot of heaters. When you don’t hit your spots well, they’ll make you pay for it.”

Switch-hitting catcher Carlos Santana homered twice, becoming the first Indians batter since Victor Martinez on June 1, 2007, to go deep from both sides of the plate. It was also the seventh time a Cleveland batter accomplished the feat.

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Santana added a double between his homers, completing that at-bat after fouling a pitch hard off his left shin and needing a couple of minutes to gather himself.

“He stayed in the game,” manager Manny Acta said. “He’ll be sore tomorrow, but he’s playing first base. He made a couple good swings after that. He’s OK.”

After Santana homered from the right side off Harrison in the fourth, the Indians tied the game at 2 an inning later when Kosuke Fukudome singled and scored on a double by Jason Kipnis.

Santana had his first career multihomer game, and his 23rd homer of the season, after going deep off right-hander Mark Lowe in the eighth.

Masterson gave up six runs and eight hits with two strikeouts and three walks.

Matt Harrison (12-9) gave up three runs on seven hits while pitching into the sixth inning in his first start in nine days. The left-hander struck out four and walked one.

The last batter Masterson faced was Murphy, who led off the sixth with a slow roller up the first-base line. Masterson fielded the ball and weakly flipped it toward the bag as Murphy reached on an infield single.

That was the start of a four-run outburst off Masterson and two relievers. Craig Gentry had a pinch-hit two-run single and Andrus a two-run double.

“We had a rough time putting up zeros. When a club scores five of eight tries, it’s gonna hurt you,” Acta said. “The long ball hurt Justin tonight.”

Murphy already had both of his homers, his 10th and 11th of the season, before Hamilton hit a scorching liner off into the right-center field seats by the Texas bullpen for a 4-2 lead in the fifth.

Adrian Beltre extended his hitting streak to 17 games, matching a career high, when he led off the seventh with a 411-foot blast.

His 24th homer of the season came as the first major league batter faced by right-hander Zach Putnam, who then gave up a double to Murphy and a run-scoring single to Mike Napoli before finally recording an out.

“Putnam got a rude welcome to the big leagues right off the bat,” Acta said. “But he bounced back and threw some good split-fingers. Rude welcome from Beltre.”

Notable

• Texas is 7-1 against Cleveland this season.
• Cleveland is the only AL team that doesn’t have an off day the final two weeks of the regular season. The Indians had their last scheduled off day Monday.
• Ian Kinsler extended his Rangers record with his 24th consecutive stolen base without getting caught. He was promptly picked off at second base, though that doesn’t affect his still-active streak.

EATON TWP. — Multiple departments responded to a fire in Eaton Township overnight.

The fire, at 37795 West Capel Road, was reported at 4:48 a.m.

Eaton Township Fire Chief Jason Brooks said residents of the home called in the fire and were able to evacuate by the time the Fire Department arrived.

The fire, which is believed to have started in a utility room in the home’s basement, primarily damaged the home’s lower level but also caused smoke damage throughout the home, Brooks said.

The home’s five residents — the homeowner and her grandson, her grandson’s wife and two kids — won’t be able to stay in the home. Brooks said he was unsure where they planned to stay but said “all sorts of friends and family” were at the scene to help them out.

Brooks said the fire is believed to be accidental but remains under investigation. He didn’t have a damage estimate. Brooks said the fire was under control quickly but added that Eaton Township firefighters stayed on the scene for about five hours to make sure it was completely out and to assist the family and investigators.

Firefighters from the village of Grafton as well as Carlisle and Grafton townships were called in to assist Eaton Township.

Capel Road was completely blocked for about three hours. At 7:40 a.m., firefighters reported one lane had opened back up.

Lorain County appears poised to see a shift in its congressional representation under a Republican-backed redistricting plan set to be introduced to the Ohio House of Representatives today.

Sutton

As of Monday none of the area’s legislators — including state Rep. Matt Lundy, D-Elyria, who sits on the committee that will have to review the plan before it goes to the full House — had seen the plan.

But Lundy and others said the talk of Columbus has U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton, D-Copley Township, being pushed out of Lorain County and into a district that would pit her against U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Wadsworth, in the 2012 election.

Sutton’s current district runs from northeastern Lorain County through parts of Cuyahoga and Medina counties and into Summit County. Renacci’s District includes parts of Medina and Ashland counties and all of Stark and Wayne counties.

“While we haven’t seen a map, Betty Sutton is running because the stakes are at an all time high for the hard-working, middle-class people she has been fighting for and representing from Northeast Ohio,” Sutton’s spokesman, Anthony DeAngelo, said in a prepared statement. “She’s prepared for whatever lies ahead.”

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo, who represents the remainder of Lorain County as well as Erie, Ottawa and part of Lucas counties, would see her current district pushed farther east into regions of Cuyahoga County now represented by U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Cleveland.

“If the idea is to put as many Democrats in one district as you can, this is how you do it,” Kaptur spokesman Steve Fought said.

Population shifts noted in the 2010 U.S. Census have required Ohio to trim its current 18-member congressional delegation down to 16 members. With Republicans in control of the state Legislature and all of the state’s executive offices the GOP has had full control over the process of redrawing districts.

“It will be bipartisan in that Democrats will be there,” said state Rep. Dan Ramos, D-Lorain. “We’ll be voting, but we won’t be drawing the lines. That will be done by the Republican leadership.”

No matter whose district Lorain County falls in, Ramos said he hopes the county will have a single representative in Washington.

“I would like to see our county more unified because we’ll have a better voice,” Ramos said.

Kaptur has said previously that she too believes Lorain County should be part of a single congressional district and Fought echoed that sentiment Monday.

The problem, he said, is that Republicans are looking to create solidly Republican and Democratic districts that effectively take the question of who will win in a November election out of the hands of voters.

“That’s what gerrymandering does, it cuts the middle out and draws districts to the extremes, to the left or right,” Fought said.

The conventional wisdom in Columbus and Washington is that Ohio will end up with 12 of its 16 congressional districts being in Republican hands.

Those are numbers that don’t sit well with Ramos, who is quick to point out that Ohio has a long history of being a presidential battleground because Republicans and Democrats are roughly equal in numbers in the state.

“I don’t think that we should be 75 percent of either party,” Ramos said.

State Rep. Terry Boose, R-Norwalk, and state Sen. Gayle Manning, R-North Ridgeville, said they haven’t seen the map of what the state’s new congressional districts will look like either.

Boose said he’d like to see the plan approved by the end of the week, although Lundy said he doesn’t think that will be long enough for the public to have a say in the new districts.

The idea, Lundy said, is to create the best possible districts for voters, not political parties. More discussion, he said, could lead to a better redistricting plan.

“I just think it’s a real disservice to the voters when we don’t provide competitive district,” he said.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.