Marine Lance Cpl. Alan Dinh Lam

Died April 22, 2003 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

19, of Snow Camp, N.C; assigned to the 8th Communication Battalion, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, Camp Lejeune, N.C.; killed in a non-hostile accident when a rocket-propelled grenade launcher being fired for familiarization malfunctioned near Kut, Iraq. The incident is under investigation.

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Alan Dinh Lam was a budding artist who enjoyed Shakespeare, wrote for his high school newspaper and liked to keep his friends and teachers laughing. Lam, 19, joined the Marines shortly after he graduated from high school.

He was one of three Marines killed April 22.

“I had him as a senior in my college prep English class,” teacher Geraldine Fox said. “He was one of my favorite students. He was very intelligent and funny and was a talented artist of detailed pen and ink drawings. He liked Shakespeare and loved Macbeth. He did the scenes in class with the swords and the swashbuckling.”

Lam, who grew up in Snow Camp, N.C., graduated in 2001 from Southern Alamance High School.

As a senior project, he and a friend staged a demonstration of fitness techniques they would learn in basic training. Both later came back to school in their Marine uniforms.

“They looked very dashing and handsome,” Fox recalled.

Fox said students at the school, many of whom still remember him, were taking Lam’s death hard. “It’s been a difficult past few days.”

— USA Today, Associated Press

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Marine Lance Cpl. Alan D. Lam, 19, of Snow Camp, N.C., graduated from Southern Alamance High School in 2001, and graduated from basic training at Parris Island, S.C., in early 2002. Lam was killed April 22 when a rocket-propelled grenade launcher malfunctioned. Southern Alamance Principal Kent Byrd remembered Lam as a talented artist who worked on the school newspaper staff.

“We are just so deeply saddened at the loss and just grieve for the family,” Byrd said. “If you wanted to choose the kind of kid you’d like to have on your high school campus, Alan would be an example of that.”

— Associated Press