Luke C. Yepsen

Wednesday, December 20 2006 @ 05:33 AM MST

Dallas Morning News -- Lance Cpl. Luke Yepsen, who left for Iraq in October, has died during combat, the Department of Defense said Tuesday.

After Yepsen's deployment a couple of months after finishing boot camp, the pastor of St. Martha's Catholic Church in Kingwood announced the 20-year-old infantryman was in Iraq before Sunday Masses. And church members had been praying for him, said family friend Tim Hill.

Yepsen, of Kingwood, was shot and killed during combat Thursday in Al Anbar province, his family said.

He was assigned to the 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force at Twentynine Palms, Calif.

"He looked trim and fit and healthy, and he was real proud of his new uniform," said his uncle Jim Bailey. "It's all so sudden, and he was so young."

Friends and family held a service Friday to honor Yepsen, who joined the Marines after leaving Texas A&M University in his freshman year.

"He was a real great guy. He was always having a good time," Matt Davis, a high school friend, told the Houston Chronicle.

Yepsen had recently proposed to Sandra Brumen and the two were making plans for a wedding.

Aside from his fiancee, Yepsen is survived by his parents, Sheila and Gary Yepsen, and his older brother, Kyle, 24.

In a statement released by his family, they said, "he loved playing with his nieces and nephews and was loved deeply by them. He was a large, strapping young man with a black belt in tae kwon do, but mostly he had a big heart."

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