Marine Sgt. Jesse W. Strong 24,
of Irasburg, Vt.; assigned to the 4th Combat Engineer Battalion, 4th
Marine Division, Marine Corps Reserve, Lynchburg, Va.; killed Jan. 26
by enemy action in Anbar province, Iraq.
Vermont Marine killed in Iraq
By Wilson Ring
Associated Press
MONTPELIER, Vt. — A Vermont Marine has been killed in a roadside attack in Iraq, the family says.
Sgt. Jesse
Strong, 24, was one of four Marines belonging to a reserve company
stationed in Lynchburg, Va., to be killed Wednesday, officials said.
Strong’s mother, Vicki Strong, said Thursday the family was told that he had been killed by a roadside bomb.
Strong had just
graduated from Liberty University in Lynchburg and had attended one
semester of seminary before his unit was activated. He arrived in Iraq
in August and had been due to come home in March, said Vicki Strong.
“He had a love
for his family and for Vermont,” his mother said. “He missed Vermont
terribly. He had a deep love for God and his country.
“He didn’t give his life in vain,” she said.
Jesse’s father, Nathan Strong, is the pastor of the Methodist Church in Albany, a tiny town near the Canadian border.
A reporter
embedded with those troops, Jim Dolan of WABC in New York City, said
the deaths came when insurgents ambushed a Marine convoy leaving the
town of Haditha, northwest of Baghdad, hitting a vehicle with a
rocket-propelled grenade.
Strong was the
14th service member with Vermont ties killed in action in Iraq. A 15th
service member died of natural causes in Kuwait before entering Iraq.
Vicki Strong said her son had been home-schooled.
Town Clerk Debbie Geoffroy said Thursday morning that residents were just learning of Strong’s death.
“The whole town will know by tonight,” she said. “It’s going to be devastating.
“A lot of people will be very devastated by it,” she said.
“They are a wonderful family,” Whitcomb said. “The Strongs have been in the area for a number of generations.”
Strong was a member of Company C, 4th Combat Engineer Battalion. The battalion was based in Baltimore.
In Iraq, Company
C was involved in the search for weapons caches, sweeping roads for
explosives and building fighting positions, said C Company’s Capt.
Jaime Wagner.
Wagner identified
the dead as Strong, Cpl. Jonathan Bowling, 23, of Stuart, Va.; Cpl.
Christopher Weaver, 24, of Fredericksburg, Va.; and Lance Cpl. Karl
Linn, 20, of Chesterfield, Va..
“The Marine Corps
is truly a band of brothers and we lost four brothers from this
company,” Wagner said. “But we continue to do our jobs and continue to
carry on as Marines.”
We honor his service and his life on Memorial Day and always.
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