Stephen P. Baldwyn

Thursday, May 12 2005 @ 08:19 AM EDT

Sun Herald -- MOOREVILLE, Miss. - A Marine from Mississippi has been killed in Iraq, his family confirmed Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the Department of Defense said Pfc. Stephen P. Baldwyn, 19, of Saltillo, was one of two Marines assigned to the II Marine Expeditionary Force who were killed this week during combat in Iraq.

Both Baldwyn and Lance Cpl. Taylor B. Prazynski, 20, of Fairfield, Ohio, died Monday.

The Department of Defense said Baldwyn died as a result of wounds received from an explosion while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Nasser Wa Salaam, Iraq. Prazynski died from an explosion while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Karmah, Iraq.

Both Marines were assigned to 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division of the II Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune.

Baldwyn was serving in the second platoon weapons company of the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines in the 2nd Marine Division, his family said.

Baldwyn graduated from Mooreville High School in 2004 and went to boot camp.

"He wanted to see the world," said his mother, Stephanie Baldwyn, a teacher at Mooreville High. "He wanted adventure."

He was stationed at Camp Geiger, N.C., and was sent to Germany in January. At the end of February, he went to Iraq.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete.

Prazynski's father said the military informed him Tuesday of his son's death. John Prazynski said the family was told his son was taken to a Fallujah hospital and died of shrapnel wounds on Monday.

Prazynski and a close friend joined the Marines after graduating from high school in Ohio in 2003. He had been deployed to Iraq at the beginning of the year.

Friends say he wanted to become a special education teacher and joined the Marines to earn money for college.

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