Shortly before her son was deployed to Ramadi, Iraq, Jill Puckett flew to Jacksonville to spend a week with him. When she returned to Dubach, La., she had a mother's sense it was the last time she would see him alive.

"Dennis, I have a bad feeling about this deployment," she told her husband, Dennis Puckett, the stepfather of Marine Lance Cpl. Jon Eric Bowman.

Bowman died Monday when the Humvee he was traveling in was struck by a roadside bomb.

He died en route to the hospital. Two others in his Humvee were killed instantly. All three were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment of the 2nd Marine Division, based at Camp Lejeune. They had served in Ramadi, known as one the most dangerous cities for U.S. forces, and had been in Iraq just one day short of a month.

In addition to Bowman, the slain 1st Battalion Marines include Sgt. Julian M. Arechaga, 23, of Oceanside, N.Y.; and Pfc. Shelby J. Feniello, 25, of Connellsville, Pa. They replaced members of the the 3rd Battalion, 8th Regiment, who returned home two weeks ago -- survivors of the deadliest deployment of U.S. forces so far this year.

Six Marines from Camp Lejeune have been killed in Iraq since Oct. 6 -- all in the Anbar province and all from roadside bombs. Anbar, a sparsely populated province west of Baghdad and roughly the size of North Carolina, is where the insurgency is especially fierce.

Three others from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment of the 2nd Marine Division died in separate incidents. They were Lance Cpl. John E. Hale, 20, of Shreveport, La.; Lance Cpl. Stephen F. Johnson, 20, of Marietta, Ga.; and Cpl. Bradford H. Payne, 24, of Montgomery, Ala.

Staff Sgt. Timothy Edwards, a spokesman for the 2nd Marine Division, said Marines at the Jacksonville base were grieving the dead. But he said grief has a way of steeling them for the job ahead.

"It tends to reinforce why they're there and stiffen the resolve to get the mission accomplished," he said.

Son wary of mission

Still, Richard Feniello, the father of Shelby J. Feniello, said his son was uneasy about his mission.

"He said, 'Pray for me. I'm going to need it,' " said Feniello, who lives in Connellsville, south of Pittsburgh.

Feniello said his son complained about the Humvees that the Army is using and thought they were unable to sufficiently protect the occupants.

On Thursday, he said he received what he figures was his son's last letter. But overcome with emotion, he couldn't bring himself to open it.

An only child, Shelby Feniello loved to fish and hunt, his father said. After completing an associate degree in accounting from a local community college, he joined the Marines. His grandfather, William P. Feniello, was a 25-year Air Force veteran. But for Shelby, it was always the Marines.

Richard Feniello said he will remember his son for being big-hearted and fun.

"He always made everyone around him feel strong and secure," Richard Feniello remembered.

One who re-enlisted

Arechaga, the third to die in Ramadi, re-enlisted last month after serving four years, according to an article in Newsday. His plan was to come home in March and go to school to become a police officer in Suffolk County, N.Y.

Brad Payne, of Alabama, made up his mind in the sixth grade that he wanted to be a Marine, according to The Associated Press.

"When I get out of high school, I'm going into the Marines," he wrote in a report to his teacher.

A middle child, Payne loved fishing, NASCAR and country music. He left behind a wife of two years, Erin.

Hale, a native of Shreveport, La., had been in the Marines nearly a year when a bomb detonated near his patrol, according to the AP. He was a 2005 graduate of Huntington High School and co-captain of the football team. His sister told a reporter that the terrorist strikes of Sept. 11, 2001, galvanized his decision to enlist. He used to hike the Ouachita Trail in the bayous of Louisiana to prepare for service overseas.

Efforts to contact the family of Johnson, from Marietta, Ga., were unsuccessful.

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