Bryan McAnulty dies in helicopter crash

As a Vicksburg teenager, he survived a tragic car wreck that claimed the life of his best friend and soccer teammate.

Nearly 21 years later, as a 39-year-old Marine, Master Sgt. Brian P. McAnulty was killed in Iraq. He died Monday when his helicopter crashed just after takeoff.

McAnulty, a 1985 Warren Central High graduate, was riding in a CH-53 helicopter that went down in Al Anbar province. The cause of the crash is under investigation, according to a U.S. Department of Defense news release.

The Mississippian was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division of the I Marine Expeditionary Force in Twentynine Palms, Calif.

Former Warren Central soccer teammate Rip Engler remembers that McAnulty went into the military after the car accident in Warren County in December 1985.

"After the wreck, it messed him (McAnulty) up. It was a heavy burden for him, and he joined the Marines," said Engler of Vicksburg, who is now a counselor at Hinds Community College. "It's a shock. You don't think of somebody my age getting killed in a war. He was going to retire within the next year."

McAnulty, a passenger in the car in the 1985 wreck, escaped serious injury. The crash killed his best friend and former Warren Central soccer teammate Dennis Mlakar, who drove the vehicle late one evening just before Christmas.

Lucy Young, his former soccer coach at Warren Central, said, she kept tabs on the Marine's military career through his parents. They moved away several years ago, bought a motor home and traveled around the nation before settling in North Carolina.

"He was a great guy who was very dedicated and a very dedicated soldier," said Young, who still coaches softball at Warren Central.

At least 48 military personnel with Mississippi ties, including McAnulty, have died since operations began in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This is just coming closer to home,'' Rep. George Flaggs, Jr., D-Vicksburg, said of Mississippi's latest war casualty in Iraq. "I pray to God that we can resolve it. I express my sympathy to the family."

Warren High assistant principal Sharon Williams said e-mails will be sent today to coaches, faculty and staff about McAnulty's death. "There are quite a few who are still here,'' after he graduated May 31, 1985, she said.

From the Ledger