A Cherry Point-based Marine was wounded in Iraq in 2005 and died of those injuries nearly a year ago, but the Pentagon forgot to formally announce his death until Friday.

Sgt. Nickolas Lee Hopper, 27, of Montrose, Ill., was wounded west of the town of Hit in western Iraq on June 20, 2005, said Maj. Aisha Bakkar, a spokeswoman at Cherry Point for the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. An improvised bomb struck his truck in Anbar Province, then the deadliest place for U.S. troops in Iraq.

He died in Havelock more than two years later, on Sept. 8, 2007. An autopsy report issued the next month made it clear his death was caused by the combat wounds, Bakkar said.

After families are notified, the Defense Department normally issues a brief news release on each death in Iraq and Afghanistan, whether combat-related or not. In Hopper's case, the family was properly notified of the cause of death immediately after the autopsy, and his death was properly listed as combat-related in military records, but the formal public notification was somehow overlooked, said Maj. Dave Nevers, a Marine spokesman at the Pentagon.

"All the internal procedures for classifying him as an OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) casualty were completed, but it took us a little while to realize we hadn't issued a pubic notification," Nevers said.

Hopper was assigned to the 2nd Low Altitude Air Defense Battalion, Marine Air Control Group-28, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, II Marine Expeditionary Force, according to the Pentagon news release. That unit uses shoulder-launched Stinger missiles to protect U.S. troops from airborne threats, Bakkar said. Hopper had almost certainly been assigned to other duties in Iraq, though, as insurgents there have no aircraft.

According to a statement on behalf of Hopper's family that was released by the Illinois lieutenant governor's office last fall, Hopper graduated from Dietrich High School in Dietrich, Ill., and attended Lake Land College in Mattoon, Ill. He enlisted in January 2001.

Hopper is survived by his wife, Natividad; his son, Andrew; his mother, Judy Hopper of Montrose, Ill.; his father, Van Hopper of Texas; and his brother, Christopher Hopper, of Montrose.

(News researcher Brooke Cain contributed to this story)

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