Video of the attack: WABC TV was embedded with troops in Iraq during the atack. Click here to see video.
ON THE WEB: • 4th Combat Engineer Battalion
A Spotsylvania County man was among four Marines killed yesterday in an ambush in Iraq’s Anbar province.
Cpl. Christopher Lee Weaver, 24, was a 1998 honors graduate of Chancellor High School.
He was one of 30 Chancellor graduates that year to attend Virginia Tech. Weaver graduated from Tech in December 2002 with a degree in history.
Tom Marlow of Alexandria, a friend from their days in the Theta Xi fraternity at Tech, said he'd talked to Weaver by phone the night he found out he'd be deployed to Iraq.
"He was ready to step up and ready to go," Marlow recalled. He was in positive spirits and felt he'd be doing what he'd trained for.
Marlow said fellow fraternity members looked up to and respected Weaver.
Even in college, Marlow said, Weaver's Marine training came through. He was smart and a leader, but he also had a sense of humor.
"If you went to him for help, he was always available," Marlow said.
"There really aren't many people I can say I respect more than Chris Weaver," said another fraternity friend, Jason Hayes of Stafford County.
At Chancellor, Weaver was voted "most typical senior" by his peers. He was also one of 28 seniors chosen as a "superlative" member of the class. A quote next to his name in the senior section of the 1998 Chancellor yearbook reads, "Two birds tied together have four wings, yet cannot fly." Weaver was a bright, quiet student, said Spotsylvania schools spokeswoman Sara Branner.
He took several Advanced Placement classes and was a member of the German and chess clubs, Branner said. He also participated in Students Against Drunk Driving.
Branner said the Spotsylvania school system is proud of Weaver's military service but saddened by the news.
"He was a good solid kid in our school division," Branner said.
Weaver completed basic Marine Corps training at Parris Island, S.C., in 1999, according to newspaper records. Weaver joined the Marine Reserve the summer after his freshman year at Virginia Tech, said Dan Frye, a friend since their teen years. Weaver majored in history at Tech, Frye said.
In a recent instant message conversation, Frye said, Weaver told him he might come home as soon as March.
Weaver was among four who died in an ambush attack on a convoy of the Fourth Combat Engineer Battalion’s Charlie Company.
Three other Virginia Marines also were killed in that ambush. They are Sgt. Jesse Strong, a Vermont man who was a student at Liberty University in Lynchburg; Cpl. Jonathan Bowling of Stuart; and Lance. Cpl. Karl Linn of Chesterfield.
The men were among 36 American troops killed in Iraq yesterday.
Company C, part of the 4th Combat Battalion based in Baltimore, was activated in June 2004, said Capt. Jamie Wagner of Company C, 4th Combat Engineer Battalion, and left for Iraq in September 2004. They were to return home in the spring.
A reporter embedded with those troops, Jim Dolan of WABC in New York City, said the four were killed when insurgents ambushed a Marine convoy leaving the town of Haditha, northwest of Baghdad, hitting a vehicle with a rocket-propelled grenade.
In Iraq, Company C was involved with the search for weapons caches, sweeping roads for explosives and building fighting positions, said Capt. Jamie Wagner of the company.
—Staff and wire report
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At least 11 other men and one woman with ties to the Fredericksburg area have died in Iraq since the conflict began.
Army Sgt. Nicholas Mason, 20, a National Guardsman from King George
County, was one of 22 people killed in the Dec. 21 mess-tent suicide bombing
at Forward Operating Base Marez near Mosul in northern Iraq.
Army Sgt. David Ruhren, 20, a National Guardsman from Stafford County,
was killed in the Dec. 21 mess-tent suicide bombing near Mosul in northern
Iraq. He and Mason were both expected home in June.
Marine Lance Cpl. Caleb Powers, 21, a former Fredericksburg-area resident, was killed by a sniper Aug. 17 in Ramadi.
Army 2nd Lt. Leonard Cowherd III, 22, of Culpeper was killed by a sniper May 16 while on a mission near Karbala.
Army 2nd Lt. Jeff Graham, 24, was killed Feb. 19 in central Iraq about 50 miles west of Baghdad after a bomb exploded while he led his platoon on foot patrol. The 1998 graduate of Stafford County’s Brooke Point High School spotted an explosive taped to a guardrail and warned the others in his party, probably saving several lives.
Staff Sgt. Thomas D. Robbins, 27, an Army scout, was killed Feb. 9 near Mosul when confiscated Iraqi ammunition exploded while he and other soldiers were moving the unexploded ordnance to a demolition site. Robbins grew up in New York, but his grandmother, uncles and cousin live in the Fredericksburg area.
Army Staff Sgt. David Parson, 30, was shot seven times July 6, 2003, as his vehicle approached Baghdad. The father of three had married into the prominent Belman family of Stafford County.
Army Regimental Sgt. Maj. Cornell W. Gilmore, 45, of North Stafford was killed Nov. 7, 2003, when his Black Hawk helicopter was shot down over Tikrit. He worked for the Judge Advocate General Corps at the Pentagon and was on a brief mission in Iraq.
Army Sgt. Jack Bryant Jr. of Dale City was in Muqdadiyah Nov. 20 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his military convoy, according to a Pentagon statement.
Civilian medic Jeffery Serrett, a 43-year-old Caroline County native who lived in Spotsylvania County, was shot by an unidentified assailant Nov. 2 at Abu Ghraib prison between Baghdad and Fallujah. He was working for Halliburton.
Army Spc. Frank K. Rivers Jr., 23, of Woodbridge suffered heart failure during physical training April 14 in Mosul.
Army Chief Warrant Officer 5 Sharon T. Swartworth, 43, of Alexandria, who spent weekends at a summer home in Orange County at Lake Anna, also worked for the Judge Advocate General Corps at the Pentagon, and died with Gilmore when their helicopter was shot down.
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