LOCAL MARINE DIES IN IRAQ QUARTZ HILL HIGH GRAD ONE OF 10 KILLED IN 3 DAYS.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LAKE HUGHES - A 21-year-old Marine from Lake Hughes died Sunday while fighting in Iraq.

Cpl. Ian Stewart, a 2001 Quartz Hill High School graduate whose father is executive director of a Christian camp and conference center in Lake Hughes, was one of 10 Marines killed over three days.

Stewart was ``killed in action by small-arms fire while conducting combat operations against enemy forces,'' said Lt. Col. Drew Crane.

In keeping with Marine Corps policy, officials did not specify where Stewart was killed other than in Iraq's western Al-Anbar province. The Associated Press reported that seven Marines died in action Sunday in this vast province west of Baghdad, which includes the battleground cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, and another died on Saturday. Two died in Baghdad province on Monday.

The deaths brought to nearly 1,300 the number of American troops killed in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003, AP said.

Stewart served with the 5th Marine Regiment's 3rd Battalion, part of the 1st Marine Division stationed at Camp Pendleton. The Pentagon released the names of Marines from Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado killed Saturday and Sunday from the same battalion.

Funeral arrangements have not yet been made, friends said.

Stewart, son of Dana and Dawn Stewart, grew up in Lake Hughes and attended Hughes Elizabeth Lakes Union School before going to Quartz Hill High. His family moved to Lake Hughes in 1990, when his father went to work at The Oaks Conference and Retreat Center, said Dan Smith, the camp's assistant director. Dana Stewart became camp director in 1997.

The younger Stewart, the middle of three children, helped with landscaping and groundskeeping work at the camp, where the family lives.

Stewart's death was the second in Iraq of a Marine who grew up in the Antelope Valley.

Staff Sgt. Allan Walker, a 28-year-old Highland High School alumnus, died leading an infantry unit in the Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi on April 6. Walker was one of a dozen Marines killed in combat in the area that day. Walker had been with a unit sent in to aid other Marines who had been ambushed.

Walker, who was single and had no children, had been a Marine for nearly 10 years. He spent the last two years as a drill instructor, training recruits, before he transferred to a combat unit in January and in February shipped out to Iraq with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

Charles F. Bostwick, [phone]

chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com

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