07/15/2025
Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jeffrey E. Bohr Jr., 39, of Ossian, Iowa; assigned to 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Camp Pendleton, Calif.; killed April 10, 2003, in northern Baghdad while engaging enemy forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Gunnery Sgt. Jeffrey E. Bohr Jr., 39, of Ossian, Iowa, died in a seven-hour gun battle in front of a Baghdad mosque, the Pentagon reported. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, based out of Camp Pendleton, California. Bohr was a highly trained Marine who previously served as an Army Ranger and had parachuted into Grenada, taken part in the ousting of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, and served in the Gulf War.
Bohr grew up in the small farm town of Ossian, Iowa. As a boy, he was quiet and enjoyed horseback riding, hunting, fishing, and calf roping. As a Marine, he trained for urban combat, rappelled from helicopters, and even learned survival skills like floating with his hands and feet tied.
His wife, Lori, also an Iowa native, learned of his death while driving from California to Iowa to visit family. The couple had no children. “I was proud of Jeff his whole life,” said his father, Edward Bohr. “He was part of an anti-terrorist group and went through intense training… When he came home on leave, he’d get up early in the morning and run 10 miles.”
Before deploying, Bohr expressed his strong belief in the mission in Iraq. “He said, ‘You don’t know as much about it as I do. We need to go there.’ He was ready to go. He was doing what he was good at.”
