In Memoriam

Marine from Florida dies in Iraq bombing

ASSOCIATED PRESS

DAVIE, Fla. - A Marine from South Florida was killed in a suicide bombing in Iraq, his family said.

Marine Sgt. Adam Cann, of Davie, was killed in the attack Thursday in Ramadi, said his father, Leigh Cann.

Fifty-eight people died in the incident in which the bomber infiltrated a line of police recruits. Cann, 23, was one of two U.S. servicemen who died in the bombing, Leigh Cann said.

Adam Cann, a 2000 graduate of South Plantation High School, served with a K-9 security unit and was in charge of five other K-9 units spread across five bases, his father said.

He was on his second tour of duty in Iraq after his second enlistment with the military, and had also served in Afghanistan. Cann had earlier been posted near the borders of Syria and Jordan on his current tour, but asked to be assigned deeper inside Iraq, his father told The Miami Herald for a story in Saturday's editions.

Scheduled to return in March when the tour ended, he had looked forward to attending Miami Dolphins games, his father said.

"I'll miss my boy, for the rest of my life. He was the best; always laughing, always responsible, striving to excel, always loving his family, serving his country," Leigh Cann wrote early Friday after learning of his son's death.

As of Friday, at least 2,194 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,720 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.