FORKS — Marine Pfc. Jason Hanson died in Iraq when the building he was in collapsed in the explosion of a nearby gasoline truck.
Hanson’s family said it received official notification Thursday about the circumstances surrounding Hanson’s death.
Attempts to gain official confirmation from Marine Corps spokesmen in Twentynine Palms, Calif. — where Hanson’s unit with 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force is based — were unsuccessful.
The Marine Corps earlier said only that Hanson and three other Marines were killed in “combat operations” in Anbar province west of Baghdad.
Insurgent attacks have risen in recent days in Iraq’s most troubled province, a Sunni Arab region that includes such flashpoints as Ramadi and Haditha.
A friend of the Hanson family said Thursday that the family was told the building in which Hanson and three others were patrolling collapsed after a gasoline truck pulled up next to it and exploded.
No other details, including why the truck exploded, were reported.
Senator’s nephew
Also killed in Saturday’s explosion were Cpl. Phillip E. Baucus of Montana — a nephew of U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. — Lance Cpl. Anthony E. Butterfield of California and Sgt. Christian B. Williams of Florida.
Hanson, a 2003 Forks High School graduate, joined the Marines in May 2005 and was deployed to Iraq last March, shortly after marrying Maria Farias in Forks.
He served as a rifleman in the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, based in Twentynine Palms.
In June, Hanson was knocked to the ground in the province when a sniper’s bullet found his chest.
The 7.62-mm bullet lodged in his armored protective insert in his flak jacket, leaving him only with bruises.
His story was reported on an internal Marine Corps news site and used as an example of how the small-arms protective insert — or SAPI — can protect combat troops.
A public affairs spokesman at the sprawling Marine Corps Ground Combat Center on California’s Mojave Desert said Thursday that Hanson’s awards included the National Defense Service Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the Sea Service Deployment ribbon.
Motorcade, memorial plans
Plans are still under way for a motorcade to bring Hanson’s body home from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to Forks on Wednesday, with residents waving flags as his casket passes.
The exact time is being worked out after the body arrives at Sea-Tac from Dover Air Force Base, Del.
A community memorial service is set for 6 p.m. Wednesday in the Forks High School gym, 411 S. Spartan Ave.
The Marine’s funeral is scheduled for Thursday, with the time and place to be determined.
And a Jason Hanson Memorial Fund has been set up at the First Federal Savings & Loan branch in Forks, accessible at any of the First Federal branches in Port Angeles, Sequim and Port Townsend.
The money will fund gift packages for Marines in Hanson’s unit as well as other service members from the North Olympic Peninsula who are deployed overseas.
The project was inspired by a gift package to Hanson that his mother, Carol, prepared but never got to send.
Family in Forks
In addition to his wife and mother, Hanson is survived by his father, Steven Hanson; sister Sarah Hanson, and brothers Sam and Jacob Hanson, all of Forks.
He is also survived by all four of his grandparents: Ed and Geraldine Finley of Forks, Mary Hanson of Rockport, Mass., and Ellis Hanson of Naples, Fla.
The Hansons moved to Forks from Everett — where Hanson was born — when Hanson was 5.
He is the second serviceman from the North Olympic Peninsula to be killed in the Iraq war.
Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Nathan Bruckenthal, 24, who spent two years stationed at Neah Bay before reassignment to the Middle East, was killed in April 2004 in a suicide bomber’s attack on an Iraqi oil terminal in the Persian Gulf.