I'm an old GURPS fan, and also one of copeab players (though in another online campaign). I'll chime in in favor of GURPS 4e, though. I think it's a better choice for someone new to the system, and there's been a lot of stuff that's come out recently (and in the pipeline) that's nice. If you want to go that route, the core rules and High-Tech 4e are the only must-haves; Martial Arts and the SEALS in Vietnam PDF would be handy, but not essential. Also, if you're worried about lethality, the new Action! series of PDFs look like they'd be nice for dialing that down and making it a bit more cinematic.
On the other hand, 3E does have more material on modern weaponry and armor available. On the downside, some of this has the problems that built up over time with 3E (particularly vehicle stats), plus it's all out-of-print, though a lot can still be had cheap from SJGames. Either way they're tailor-made for a T2K-style game.
One suggestion, though: you can go far sticking to the Lite version of either edition. There's a tremendous amount of addition material and rules that can be added, but just because it can doesn't mean it should. There's a lot of options, and it's easy to bog a game down at the expense of fun and playability if you're not careful.
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