Marine Cpl. Chad W. Powell

Died June 23, 2005 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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22, of West Monroe, La.; assigned to Headquarters Company, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.; killed June 23 when a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated near his convoy vehicle in Fallujah, Iraq.

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Louisiana Marine killed in Iraq

Associated Press

MONROE, La. — One of the two Marines killed in the most recent suicide bomb attack in Iraq was from northern Louisiana, his family said.

Cpl. Chad Powell’s wife, Danielle Powell, and his parents, Jerry and Brenda Powell, were notified Friday morning that their son had died in the attack Thursday night.

“We’re sitting here grieving,” Jerry Powell of western Ouachita Parish told The News-Star of Monroe.

Chad Powell also is survived by his 3-year-old son, Elijah.

According to a Marine Corps statement, two Marines — a man and a woman — died in the attack, and three Marines and a sailor were listed as missing but believed dead. Thirteen other Marines, 11 of them women, were wounded.

The statement said the dead woman was killed by the bomb, and the man by small-arms fire immediately after the car bomb attack.

Chad Powell, 22, had joined the Marine Corps in November 2001, six months after graduating from West Monroe High School. He was a member of the II Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

His father-in-law, Dan Chason, said his daughter called Friday morning to tell him.

Powell had only three months left to serve, Chason told KNOE-TV.

“This was his 3rd deployment. He’d been to Haiti, Afghanistan and now they sent him to downtown Fallujah, Iraq, which is the hot zone,” Chason said. “He was out on patrol with a number of other soldiers and there was a car loaded with explosives that intentionally rammed his vehicle and he was killed.”

Chason said his son-in-law was a man of integrity. “I’m extremely proud to call him my son-in-law.”