Vancouver has lost its first hometown soldier to the Iraq war.

    Marine Lance Cpl. Cedric E. Bruns, son of Peter and Debbie Bruns of Vancouver and a 2000 graduate of Prairie High School, was killed Friday in a truck accident in Kuwait.

    Bruns, 22, died Friday when the Humvee in which he was riding collided with a logistics support vehicle, a sort of flatbed truck. The collision was head-on and occurred in a blinding wind, according to Bruns' friend, Marine Lance Cpl. Shane Hafner, 21, of Vancouver.

    Bruns had been in Kuwait since January, serving as a combat engineer with the 6th Engineer Battalion's 4th Force Service Support Group, based in Portland.

    He was trained to "do anything from demolition to building," said Gunnery Sgt. Rick Nelson.

    Bruns was a member of a family-like cadre of young men and women, including his two Marine buddies, Hafner and Lance Cpl. Jacob McGreevey, 22.

    McGreevey is still in the war zone. Friends haven't heard from him recently.

    Hafner was reassigned from the Middle East before the war started.

    He transferred through Hawaii to Vancouver, to which he returned a week ago to prepare for his May 17 wedding to his fiancee, Jenna Rogers. Rogers, 19, said she first met Bruns when she was in the fifth grade and he was in the sixth grade at Pleasant Valley Middle School in Salmon Creek.

    "He was kind of a punk little kid," she said, affectionately, with a laugh.

    "Not in a bad way. I was a punk too. But he had fun teasing the girls, like a normal sixth- and seventh-grader. I went to a different school then, and didn't know him until Prairie High School."

    After graduating two or three years ago, the group "hung out every weekend," said Rogers. "We didn't do anything really. We'd just sit around. Rent movies. Go out to dinner."

    Bruns was neither an athlete nor a musician, she said.

    "He was a good guy," said Hafner, reverting to respectful Marine lingo. "I lost a devil dog.

    "We talked Marines. He burned me some CDs. Rap songs."

    War surprised friends

    The war surprised both Bruns and McGreevey. They had been in the reserves, serving in Portland and Eugene, Ore., and suddenly they were en route to Kuwait. Hafner was on active-duty status and was sent into the war zone last year.

    The departure of the three men left Rogers at home worrying and working at a local bank.

    It also left Bruns' girlfriend, Shanna Ehlers, at home worrying and working at a sandwich shop.

    "We went together for seven months," said Ehlers, but they weren't engaged.

    Rogers' bachelorette party was held at Ehlers' home Friday night.

    About 11 p.m., Bruns' parents called to say he had been killed.

    "They didn't say much," said Ehlers. But the merriment went out of the evening.

    Ehlers didn't know when memorial services might be. Bruns' parents couldn't be reached on Monday afternoon.

    Bruns and McGreevey had written to Rogers of back-breaking labor in Kuwait filling sandbags and building bunkers to hide from Scud missile attacks.

    "Things are starting to pick up a little," Bruns wrote in one of his last notes before the war started. "We've been doing a lot of training exercises. They tell us we're leaving this camp soon to move in to occupy Iraq and Baghdad."