Sports

Country club mourns Marine killed in Fleet Week tragedy

It was a day to relax, play some golf and be treated to the kind of life they serve to protect.

More than 50 members of the Navy and Marines were special guests of Eagle Oaks Country Club in Farmingdale, N.J., yesterday afternoon, many of them carrying heavy hearts after learning of the death of 22-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Steven Jorgenson on 12th Avenue in the early-morning hours yesterday.

Jorgenson, in town for Fleet Week and in full uniform, was struck by a car after he exited a cab with other Marines at West 49th Street and dashed for the USS Iwo Jima in an attempt to make his 1 a.m. curfew.

He died instantly. He had survived nine months in Afghanistan. None of his buddies was injured.

“It’s devastating. It really is,” Captain Christopher Kupka, a Marine MP, said at the golf course yesterday.

“This is a time when we come to New York and showcase who we are and what we do, and this happens. It’s devastating.”

Jorgenson, who grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas, was supposed to participate in yesterday’s golf outing and dinner, the third annual “Honor Day” organized by Eagle Oaks to salute those in service during Fleet Week. Four of his closest friends withdrew from the event, too shaken to participate.

In honor of the fallen Marine, the flag outside the clubhouse was lowered to half staff and a moment of silence was held before the dinner, attended by more than 600.

Many of them were from the Iwo Jima.

Somehow the tragedy seemed to add even more significance to a day servicemen could relax and feel safe and respected.

“I didn’t know what a celebrity’s life is like until today,” said gunnery sergeant Jeremy Messerschmidt of Lexington, Ky. “It’s great to feel the support from all the people.”

Messerschmidt was among the officers who gathered early yesterday to discuss the tragedy and how to tell the servicemen. Orders were given not to post anything on Facebook or Twitter.

“We wanted the family to be notified properly first,” Messerschmidt said. During his 15 years of service, Messerschmidt, 33, has lost only one man under his command during two tours in Afghanistan.

“It sits in your head and sits in your heart,” Messerschmidt said. “But you have to remember how many you have left to lead.”

Kupka works with the anti-terrorism protection offices, and organized a video presentation for the Marines before they got to New York to remind them what they represent — and that they might be targeted. He started with a video of 9-11 and the first responders.

“It was a somber video,” said Kupka, who grew up in Mahopac. “But you want to make them aware of what might happen. That’s the ramifications of combat and that’s what we sign up for. But a non-combat death is hard to accept.”

The spectator of death, even on the West Side highway, made it even more clear the sacrifice these servicemen make.

“We wanted them to know we’re sensitive to their pain,” said Joseph Cary, an Eagle Oaks member who spearhead yesterday’s event.

“Whether they’ve fallen in the desert or whether they’ve fallen on 49th Street, we’re sensitive to their pain. We all want to pay homage and remember all the sacrifices all the men and women make for us so we can come to places like this and have fun. It’s a reminder that the freedom we have isn’t by chance.”

Said club owner Dominic F. Gatto: “It’s all about freedom is not free. The members are grateful for what these guys do, which essentially write a blank check with their lives.”

Nearly $90,000 was raised yesterday and will go to “Hope for the Warriors,” an organization that helps those wounded in combat.

“All of this is about how precious life is,” Gatto said.

It’s a message that had even more meaning yesterday.

george.willis@nypost.com