Lance Corporal Benjamin R. Carman joined the Marines as part of a delayed entry program when he was a senior in high school in 2001. He attended bootcamp in September 2002 at MCRD San Diego, after which he was assigned to Echo Company 2/4 in the Fleet Marine Force on the USS Essex. In February 2024, Carman’s unit deployed to Kuwait and then Ramadi Iraq where he was killed when his unit came under attack from insurgents.

Ben was friendly, kind, loyal, fun-loving, and compassionate. Once, following a firefight, his QRF had wounded an insurgent. He jumped off the truck and picked up the insurgent and laid him in the truck.

First, and above all, Ben was a Born-Again-Christian, who loved the Lord. One fellow Marine called him, “My pastor in country.”