LCpl. Brian Hopper

Community, kin say goodbye to Marine killed in Iraq

As the preacher ended a prayer, photographs began to flash on a projection screen. From old hunting photographs to pictures with his family, the pictures told the story of a boy who grew up playing and hunting in the woods of around Wynne, a southern Cross County town of fewer than 9,000, and grew into a soldier fighting in the war fields of Iraq.

Hopper, 21, of Wynne was one of 31 people killed Jan. 26 when the CH-53E helicopter they were in crashed near Rutba, Iraq, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. The cause of the accident, which claimed the lives of 30 Marines and one sailor, remains under investigation. Twenty-seven of the fallen Marines, including Hopper, were assigned to 1 st Battalion, 3 rd Marine Regiment, 3 rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

Serving his country is what Hopper had wanted to do.

As a teenager, Hopper hung ropes from the trees and carved trails on the hillsides behind his family’s Crowley’s Ridge home so he could train. When a Marine recruiter in Arkansas told Hopper he wouldn’t qualify because he’d had reconstructive knee surgery, Hopper went to a recruiter in Mississippi.

He never mentioned his new knee and was accepted, his father, Rob Hopper, said last week.

Hopper fought for five days during the siege of Fallujah with shrapnel embedded in his back, arm and face, earning the first of three Purple Hearts. The injuries were enough to send him home, but Hopper didn’t want to leave his fellow soldiers, his father said. "He faced troubles as he had trained all his life to do," said. Robbie McMaster, who presided over the service. "He faced them as a true Marine as he had trained to do."

On Thursday several people gathered along the roadside of the 12-mile procession from the church to Harris Chapel Cemetery to say goodbye. They stood in front of the Regions Bank, in front of Central Fire Station and outside their cars and trucks. Many held flags and held their right hands over their hearts. "He gave his life that we might have freedom," McMaster said during the service.