LCpl. David Houck, U.S.M.C. (KIA)

Marine Killed in Iraq Was Raised a Patriot
Family Remembers an Adventurer

By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 9, 2004; Page A24

Marine Lance Cpl. David B. Houck was the kind of kid who scaled tall trees and leapt wildly from their branches with a mischievous twinkle in his blue eyes. As a toddler, he fearlessly rode a tricycle off his family's front porch, a stunt that yielded a broken tooth and the first stitches of many to come.

"If it sounded like a good idea, no matter how crazy it was, it had to be done," said his sister, Melissa Carrasco, 27.

So no one was surprised when Houck, the son of a retired Navy officer, told his family in early 2002 that he was joining the Marines, knowing full well that he would see combat, Carrasco said.

One year later, Houck, of Winston-Salem, N.C., left for Iraq. On Nov. 26, he was killed in Anbar province. Yesterday, the 25-year-old was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, where his maternal grandfather was buried decades before.

A rifleman on his second tour in Iraq, Houck was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

As part of a military family, Houck and his four siblings were raised up and down the Eastern Seaboard and home-schooled by their mother. After dropping out of college, Houck was trying to find himself when the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks occurred and stirred in him a desire to serve his country, Carrasco said.

"We'd always been patriotic; we'd always been taught to put our hands over our hearts," said Carrasco, of Lynchburg, Va. "This reverence and respect for our country was something we'd always known."

The military suited the intrepid Houck, and the work filled out his lanky, 6-foot-2 frame, his sister said. In lighthearted letters to his parents, Robert and Beth Houck of Mount Ulla, N.C., the Marine wrote of the pride he felt in his comrades and his mission. He expressed only one complaint, Carrasco said: Iraq was hot, he wrote -- so oppressively hot that he got chills when the temperature dropped into the nineties.

In his last letter, dated Nov. 20, he said his unit was embarking on an operation that would probably make TV newscasts, Carrasco said.

"But he told my parents, 'Just remember: I know what I'm doing, I'm well-trained and I'll be fine,' " she said.

About 30 mourners gathered for the late-afternoon ceremony yesterday and watched as Marine sergeants presented Houck's parents with a folded U.S. flag. A second flag for Houck's 1-year-old daughter, Chloe Isabel, was handed to her mother, Amanda Pajdo.

In a Nov. 30 letter to the Salisbury (N.C.) Post, Robert Houck wrote that his son had no doubts about his mission, and that he had made his father proud, if sorrowful.

"Today, everything seems strange," Bob Houck wrote. "Laundry is getting done. I walked my dog. I ate breakfast. Somehow, I'm still breathing, and my heart is still beating. My son lies in a casket half a world away!"

As the sun lowered from a brilliant blue sky yesterday, a U.S. flag was folded over Houck's coffin. The scene was a mixture of tragedy and beauty that the Marine might have appreciated. In a letter home during his first tour in Iraq, Houck enclosed the petals of a rose he had found growing amid a battle in Mosul.

"He wrote that he was amazed," his sister said, "to find such beauty in the chaos around him."