GySgt. Jeffery Bohr, U.S.M.C (KIA)

OSSIAN (AP) -- Flags are at half-staff today waiting for the body of a local soldier to return home.

The Iowa native and Marine was killed during a seven-hour battle outside a mosque in downtown Baghdad.

Gunnery Sgt. Jeff Bohr, 39, of San Clemente, Calif., died Thursday from two gunshot wounds, said his father, Eddie Bohr of Ossian. He was a member of the 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment, Alpha Company of Camp Pendleton, Calif. Twenty-two others were injured in the battle.

Capt. Frank Thorp, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, said last week Jeff Bohr's unit was acting on information that regime leaders were organizing a meeting in the area. During the operation, Thorp said, Marines were shot at from the mosque compound.

Jeff Bohr, a native of Ossian, was a dedicated Marine who was ready to go to war, his father said Sunday.

"We were darned proud of him," Eddie Bohr said. "When you make it up to the top end of the Marine Corps ... you know you're pretty good."

Bohr described his son as a quiet person who liked running.

Jeff Bohr, who finished several marathons and ran 10 miles a day, spent a few years in the Army before joining the Marines.

A childhood friend, Troy Breitsprecher, an Ossian native now living in Chicago, said Bohr became involved in the military as a junior in high school.

Breitsprecher grew up across the field from Bohr and became friends through their families' interest in horses.

"Everybody is devastated. There is a lot of support for the family," Breitsprecher said.

All of the people in the community of 900 have been affected, he said.

"It's hard to take," Breitsprecher said.

Bohr had seen combat in Grenada, Panama, the first Gulf War and Somalia before becoming an instructor at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base 38 miles north of San Diego. He entered Iraq in January.

Eddie Bohr got a few letters from Jeff during his tour in Iraq. The final letter arrived just hours before Marines came to tell Bohr his son was killed in action. In the letter, mailed about two weeks ago, Jeff Bohr said he had just been through a sand storm and battle in the desert.

Eddie Bohr said the news of his son's death has been difficult.

We're doing "about as good as can be expected," he said. "It's constantly on your mind. You don't sleep good at night. The first night you don't even sleep."

Jeff Bohr's younger brother Richard, 36, of Minneapolis, is an Army reservist and is expected to go to Iraq the first week of May, Eddie Bohr said.

"It isn't a good feeling, but you don't get choices," Bohr said. "Once you're in the military, you get told."

Still, Bohr is worried.

"You lose one, and you know it can happen," he said.

The brothers had made a pact this winter to meet each other while in Iraq, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times.

Richard Bohr told the Times he will set up a memorial near the mosque where his brother was killed.

Jeff Bohr's mother, Jeanette, was watching television Thursday when she heard the news about the fighting outside the Baghdad mosque.

"I had a feeling," she told the La Crosse Tribune. "I was antsy all day."

Later that evening, two Marines knocked on her door in Lansing.

She said the military was her son's calling.

"You couldn't change his tune about going back in," she said. "He had his years of service in and then he signed up for another three years."

Jeff Bohr's wife, Lori, is a Cedar Rapids native. She learned of her husband's death Saturday after driving from California to Cedar Rapids to visit family.

Jeff Bohr planned to fix computers for a living after his enlistment was up in two years, his father said. He is the second Iowan to die in the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Marine Reserve Sgt. Bradley Korthaus, 28, of Davenport, drowned March 24 while crossing a canal.

Eddie Bohr said funeral plans for his son were pending. They are waiting for Bohr's body to arrive in the United States.