Luke Benjamin Holler killed in combat

A San Antonio Marine reservist described as "happy-go-lucky" by one comrade was killed Thursday in Iraq when a roadside bomb struck his patrol.

Lance Cpl. Luke Benjamin Holler, 21, died on combat duty in western Iraq's Anbar province, a volatile area where soldiers and Marines have battled a lethal mix of Baathist guerrillas and terrorists. He was the 25th San Antonian killed in Iraq. Four others have died in Afghanistan since 9-11.

"He was very happy-go-lucky, just a great kid," said Staff Sgt. Edward Cruz, who helped prepare Holler for duty in Iraq. "Very intelligent, and he was very dedicated in what he did."

Holler is the ninth Marine from the San Antonio-based 4th Reconnaissance Battalion to die in Iraq since the March 20, 2003, invasion.

The recon battalion offered few details of his death Friday, declining to identify the location of where the attack occurred. Cruz said that information could jeopardize Marine recon operations, which focus on gathering intelligence and then reporting it.

"We can't name the town, especially with the reconnaissance assets there," Cruz explained.

Holler's parents declined to be interviewed as the day ended, but he was known to be a motivated and meticulous Marine. Cruz, who helps Marines at the battalion attend specialty schools as well as prepping them for deployment overseas, said Holler was a serious student with "fantastic confidence."

Over his two years with the San Antonio recon battalion, Holler had spent nearly three months in the basic reconnaissance course, three weeks at jump school in Fort Benning, Ga., and nine weeks at a dive school in the Florida Panhandle. He had been to survival, evasion, resistance and escape training, as well as an amphibious reconnaissance course.

As training ensued last summer, Cruz said neither Holler nor his fellow Marines appeared worried about their upcoming mission to Anbar, whose capital, Ramadi, is under constant fire. Parts of the province are controlled by Islamic insurgents waging jihad on American and Iraqi forces.

"Their biggest concern was being able to perform above and beyond. They never had an opinion about the politics of the war," Cruz recalled. "Their concern was the mission at hand, the training involved and just completing the job."

Holler's death wasn't listed late Friday by the Pentagon's Web site, but Defense Department records indicate he is the seventh Marine to die in Anbar since Oct. 27. In that time, 12 other soldiers and Marines have been killed in Iraq, bringing the military death toll to 2,817 since the invasion.

October was the fourth-deadliest month of the war, with 103 troops lost, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Casualties have been up since U.S. and Iraqi troops began combat operations in Baghdad last summer. But firefights, mortaring and roadside bomb attacks are a daily occurrence in Anbar, whose population of 1.3 million is one-fourth that of Baghdad.

As the weekend began, there was no word on plans for Holler's services. The last San Antonian buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, Joe Anthony Narvaez, 25, was killed Oct. 2 by a sniper in Baghdad. It was his second tour of Iraq.

This was Holler's first time in Iraq, and he had been there just three months.

Though training continued as usual at the Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Center across from Brooke Army Medical Center, it did so on a somber note.

"Anyone's sad by the loss of any Marine," Cruz said. "Everyone was hit hard by it, but like everything else, it goes along with the work."

From the Express News