CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. – A Tibetan immigrant who came to the United States as a child was killed in combat in Iraq on Saturday, the Pentagon said Monday.
Lance Cpl. Tenzin Dengkhim, 19, of Falls Church, Va., died “as a result of hostile action” in Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune.
Pentagon and Marine Corps officials provided no details about how he died, but the U.S. military in Iraq said a Marine it did not name had been killed Saturday by an explosion during combat in the central city of Hadithah, which is in Anbar province.
Pema Gorap, a family friend, told The Washington Post that the Dengkhims came to the United States from Tibet as part of a relocation project approved by Congress in the early 1990s.
Dengkhim entered the Marines in September 2003 and joined his unit in March 2004, said Lt. Barry Edwards, a spokesman for the 2nd Marine Division. He was a rifleman and had earned the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the National Defense Service Medal.
“From what I learned from a friend, he wanted to go (to Iraq),” Gorap said. His mother, Rinzin Denghkim, didn’t object, she said: “She supported whatever he wished.”
She said relatives and friends came to Rinzin Dengkhim’s home in Virginia to pray and remember Tenzin on Monday. They were waiting for word on when his body would be sent home.
