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Camp Lejeune Marine dies in Iraq

MASHPEE, Mass — A 19-year-old Marine from Mashpee has died while fighting in Iraq.

The Defense Department said Friday that Pfc. Daniel A. C. McGuire died Thursday while supporting combat operations in Anbar province.

Details about his death weren’t immediately released. However, the military reported that a Marine was killed Thursday during a small-arms fire attack during security operations about a half of mile east of Fallujah, a former insurgent stronghold in Anbar province that has seen a sharp decline in violence after local Sunnis turned against al-Qaida in Iraq.

McGuire was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Family and friends said McGuire, an Eagle Scout and the oldest of four brothers, enlisted in the Marine Corps not long after he graduated from Mashpee High School in 2007. They said he was sent to Iraq in March and was to return to the U.S. in November.

Janet Kraskouskas, McGuire’s high school guidance counselor, told The Boston Globe he was popular and respected at school. Kraskouskas said she and some of his teachers encouraged McGuire to go to college instead of enlisting right away. She said he was accepted for college, but his dream was to go into the military.

“He was steadfast,” she told the Globe. “He had a deep commitment to serving his country, and was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.”

The Rev. Thomas Crumb, his longtime pastor at Christ Chapel in Centerville, told the newspaper McGuire also was deeply committed to his religious faith.

“Dan believed deeply in the cause for which he was fighting,” Crumb said. “He died doing what he believed in, what he believed God had created him to do and called him to do.”