Brent Beeler remembered

In the rural community of Napoleon, southeast of Jackson, it was easy to spot Brent Beeler and his buddies heading off to the lake -- their pickup truck loaded with four-wheelers and blaring country music.

"Bayou Beeler," as he was known, was as "redneck as they come," said his mother, Rhonda Beeler.

"They looked like the Beverly Hillbillies going down there with the quads hanging out the back of his truck," she said Friday, the day after her only son was killed in Iraq.

"He was a bighearted kid and he loved anything with a motor between his legs."

Lance Cpl. Beeler, a 22-year-old Marine reservist, was killed by enemy fire Thursday in Anbar province, according to his family and the military.

His mother said he was shot in the chest at close range with a bullet that penetrated his flak jacket.

Beeler, who was single, had been in Iraq since October, his mother said.

He was attached to the Lansing-based 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, which has been involved in heavy fighting near Fallujah.

Rhonda Beeler last talked to her son Sunday. "He said it was just awful," she said. "It was indescribable."

A 2002 graduate of Napoleon High School, Beeler loved country singer Hank Williams Jr., boating and skiing, his mother said. An average student, he liked to have fun more than he liked studying, family and friends said.

Beeler's other love was football. A 200-pounder, he started at offensive tackle and defensive end at Napoleon High, said Scott Ashe, principal and coach at the 500-student school.

"He's the kind of kid who always had a smile on his face," Ashe said. "And he always went a hundred miles an hour wherever he went, whatever he was doing, whether it was playing football or getting in trouble."

Ashe had to discipline Beeler a few times, but it was just a "talking to -- we never had a spat or anything like that."

Beeler, who worked for a Jackson glass company, had tried to sign up for the Marines at 17, but his mother wouldn't sign the papers.

"So a couple years went by and he called me and said, 'What would you say if I joined the Marines?' " Rhonda Beeler said. "And I said no. And he said, 'I'm 20 years old and I can do what I want now.' And I said no. And he said it was too late -- he had already joined -- and then he said, 'Don't tell Dad. He'll be mad.' "

From the Detroit News

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Brent Beeler slain by sniper