Marine Cpl. Brian P. Prening

Died November 12, 2004 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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24, of Sheboygan, Wis.; assigned to 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Corps Reserve, Chicago; killed Nov 12 by enemy action in Babil province, Iraq.

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Funeral held for Wisconsin Marine killed in Iraq

Associated Press

Marine Cpl. Brian Prening was eulogized at St. Joseph Lutheran Church in Plymouth, Wis., on Tuesday.

Prening, 24, was killed Nov. 12 by small-arms fire south of Baghdad as his unit was attacked by more than 70 insurgents.

He had been assigned to the Marine Corps Reserve’s 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, based in Chicago.

The Rev. Craig DuBois told about 500 mourners at the funeral that they should keep Prening in mind when they contemplate their own deaths, and hope to “die instantly, without any suffering.”

“I wonder is that really the most important way to die? Isn’t the highest and the grandest way to leave this world discovered in the exit of a young soldier tending to a fellow comrade in danger?” DuBois asked them, referring to Prening.

The soldier’s father, Bill Prening, said after the service that his son was killed as he helped a fellow Marine whose machine gun had malfunctioned.

“He was under heavy fire, and Brian was giving him cover fire and trying to go over and help him get the machine gun going again and that’s when he was killed,” Bill Prening said.

The other Marine survived.

“Brian was doing what he thought he was right. His commanding officer, when he called me from Iraq, said Brian was always going to be his hero,” the senior Prening said.