Jon Eric Bowman killed by improvised explosive

Another northwest Louisiana Marine, a combat veteran from Claiborne Parish with only a year or so left in uniform, has died in combat, his family reports.

The death of Lance Cpl. Jon Eric Bowman, 21, is the second involving an area Marine in the past week.

The 2004 graduate of Summerfield High School died Monday when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee, his widow, Dawn Farley Bowman, said today from her home in Summerfield.

"He'd been in the been in the Marines 2 1/2 years," she said, less than 18 hours after solemn, uniformed Marines from Bossier City-based Bravo Co., 1/23rd Marines arrived at her family's home to break the dreadful news. "I was in Dallas working, and they told my brother."

Dawn Bowman returned from Texas and now is preparing to bury her husband of less than two years. Funeral arrangements are just getting under way and are incomplete.

"This was his second deployment," she said, adding that her husband was soon to be promoted to corporal. His time in Iraq would have gone on many months; he arrived there in early September.

Bowman believes her husband died in Anbar Province. The member of Charlie Company in the 1/6 Marines had been in Ramadi, where many area Marine Reservists served in 2004 and 2005.

Details of her husband's death are sketchy at this time.

"He died yesterday at 10 something in the morning our time and 6 something in the evening there," Bowman said.

Her husband joined the service just after graduation from Summerfield High as a way to be able to support himself and get benefits for college. "He told me when he was little he thought about it," said Bowman, who dated her husband about four years before they got married.

"But when 9-11 hit, he thought even harder about going in. As soon as he graduated, they took him in."

Jon Eric Bowman is the son of Johnny Wayne Bowman of Monroe and Jill Puckett of Lincoln Parish.

Paula Farley said her son-in-law was a good and thoughtful young man who loved her daughter dearly and called Dawn Bowman just before he left for Iraq the first time to propose. They were married in a home service in February 2005 and had a big church wedding the following October, just less than a year ago. They then went on a honeymoon cruise to Veracruz, Mexico.

"They re-did their vows again because they loved each other so much," Farley said.

From the Shreveport Times