Marine Lance Cpl. Andrew S. Dang

Died March 22, 2004 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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20, of Foster City, Calif.; assigned to 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.; killed March 22 by hostile fire near Ramadi, Iraq.

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Andrew Dang's varied interests were clear in high school: He worked on the school newspaper, helped start the robotics club, and played on the varsity football and wrestling teams. "He was polite, he was nice, he was super-loyal and courageous," said Steve Sell, a high school football coach in San Mateo, Calif. "He was undersized for a defensive lineman, but he didn't back down. He's the kind of kid you would expect to go overseas and do his part because that's the way he was here." Lance Cpl. Dang, 20, died March 22 when he was hit by hostile fire during a patrol near Ramadi, Iraq. High school teachers remembered him as a strong student who graduated in the top 10 percent of his class with a 3.7 grade point average. Under his senior yearbook picture, he placed a quote from British novelist Iris Murdoch that summed up his view of life at age 18: "We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality." Dang joined the Marines about a month after the start of the war in Iraq and was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif. He had been in Iraq for two weeks when he was killed. Survivors include his mother, Antoinette Medina, of Foster City, Calif.

— Associated Press