WINCHESTER — A 20-year-old Marine from Winchester died in combat in Baghdad, the fifth Virginian killed in the war against Iraq, the Defense Department said Tuesday.
Lance Cpl. David Edward Owens Jr. was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division in Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Owens’ mother, Debbie Owens, remembered her son Tuesday as a man who was ready for a challenge and proud to serve his country. She said the family was notified Saturday that he had been injured in battle and told that wounds did not appear to be life-threatening.
But on Monday afternoon, an Army chaplain and a Marine lieutenant colonel arrived at the family’s doorstep.
“I knew then that he didn’t make it,” Debbie Owens told The Winchester Star. He had been shot in the chest during a battle in Baghdad.
“Our whole life was centered around him,” she added.
Owens, an only child, last saw his parents when he was home during a 10-day leave over the New Year’s holiday, before leaving for Kuwait from California on Jan. 28. He told them he wasn’t worried about the deployment, that it was what he had been training for.
