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From Tibet to Utah, to a Death in Iraq

Lance Cpl. Tenzin Dengkhim, 19, a Tibetan who immigrated to the United States with his family more than a decade ago and later joined the Marine Corps, was killed in combat Saturday in Iraq's Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad.

The Dengkhims came to the United States in the early 1990s and moved to Utah before settling in northern Virginia.

Dengkhim became a Marine in September 2003. In March 2004, he was assigned to the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, based out of Camp Lejeune, N.C. He served as a rifleman and had been on active duty in Iraq for less than a month.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eric Westervelt is a San Francisco-based correspondent for NPR's National Desk. He has reported on major events for the network from wars and revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa to historic wildfires and terrorist attacks in the U.S.