Marine Lance Cpl. Dustin L. Canham

Died March 23, 2008 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom

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21, of Lake Stevens, Wash.; assigned to Marine Forces Reserve’s 6th Engineer Support Battalion, 4th Marines Logistics Group, Portland, Ore.; died March 23 from a non-hostile incident in Djibouti.

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Lance corporal dies in Djibouti

By Dan Lamothe

Staff writer

A reservist died Sunday in a non-hostile incident in the African country of Djibouti, Defense Department officials announced Wednesday.

Lance Cpl. Dustin L. Canham, 21, of Lake Stevens, Wash., was assigned to Marine Forces Reserve’s 6th Engineer Support Battalion, 4th Marine Logistics Group, of Portland, Ore.

No additional details about the death or Canham’s service record were available, said Capt. Erin Wiener, a Marine Forces Reserve spokeswoman. Defense Department officials said the death is under investigation.

Canham’s MySpace page was filled with more than a dozen messages remembering him as a kind-hearted friend who helped others learn to drive and was supportive at another friend’s recent funeral.

“Why is it that all the good people go first,” one friend wondered. “You were always a class act and a wonderful person to be around.”

Dustin Canham proudly proclaimed his connection to the Corps on his MySpace page and said he had two brothers, a carpenter and a college baseball player “at OSU.”

The latter brother was identified by KGW TV-8, an Oregon TV station, as Mitch Canham, a catcher on the Oregon State University baseball team that won back-to-back national titles in 2006-2007. He was drafted by the San Diego Padres in Major League Baseball’s amateur draft last June.