Brian Enrique Dunlap, Marine Reserve, Sergeant -- Rest In Peace

Brian E. Dunlap, 34

Marine Reserve, Sergeant
Based: Los Alamitos
2nd Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division
Supporting: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Died: September 24, 2005
Taqaddum (near), Iraq
Single
Gender: Male
Hometown: Carmichael
High School: Del Campo High (Fair Oaks)
Burial: Calvary Catholic Cemetery, Sacramento



The above video is found here.

A patriot, an avid reader and a political conservative who wrote on his Internet blog that he wanted to talk to all open-minded people, even "libs," Marine Corps Reserve Sgt. Brian Dunlap, 34, was killed Sept. 24 by a roadside bomb near Baghdad.


Dunlap joined the Marines twice: once as a 20-year-old trying to grow up, his parents said, and again in his 30s as a reservist attached to the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Corps Reserve in Los Alamitos.

In between, he worked for the California Department of Forestry as a firefighter, and later joined a firefighting company serving the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton.

He loved the Marines, and got back in partly because he figured that, being single, he should do his part rather than let his friends who had wives and children take all the risk, said his father, Dexter Dunlap of Carmichael, Calif.

Brian Dunlap was deployed on Father's Day last June, and hit the ground in Iraq in August. In the Marine Corps, he worked as a weapons specialist. He had been helping to train members of the Iraqi army, and hoped that his work would enable U.S. soldiers to come home sooner. "He joined the Marines and, basically, that was his life from then on," his father said.

Dunlap was born in 1971 in Fort Madison, Iowa. The family moved around when he and his brother, Patrick, were children, living for a time in the Netherlands and in Boston before settling in the Sacramento-area city of Carmichael when Brian was 13. His father was an engineer in the oil business.

In a lot of ways, he was like his Dad: they shared a blog, they both loved history and they traded books. He was the kind of guy who made friends for a lifetime, his mother said. He loved music, from Mozart to Iron Maiden, and he learned to surf while living near Oceanside and San Diego.

Read the entire article about Marine Reserve Sergeant Brian E. Dunlap here and find Brian Enrique Dunlap's Blog here.

Read more about Sergeant Dunlap here, here, here and here.