Jeffrey L Kirk

BATON ROUGE, La. — A Baton Rouge Marine killed in Iraq had already been wounded in the line of duty once and had asked to be sent back, family members said.

When Jeffrey Lynn Kirk was considering joining the Marine Corps as a student McKinley High School in Baton Rouge, his mother warned him of the possibility of dying in combat. His reply was “’At least I would die doing what I wanted to do with my life,”’ Lisa Kirk of Abita Springs said.

Kirk, 24, was killed Sunday by enemy fire in Anbar province, Iraq.

He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif. This was Kirk’s second...