Brandon J. Webb
Lance Corporal, United States Marine Corps
April 12, 1986 – June 20, 2006
Age – 20
Schwartz Creek, MI
Operation Iraqi Freedom
1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, CA
Killed when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Karmah, Iraq
Lance Cpl. Webb was raised in Arizona and graduated from Red Mountain High School there in 2004, but attended Swartz Creek High School during his junior year in 2003. He served with the Swartz Creek department from June 2004 to May 2005. Joining the Marines had been Webb’s dream since he was a little boy. He felt like people needed to fight for this country and make it a better place. He was a straight-A student who never got into serious trouble. He loved baseball, hockey, golf and playing video games. He was to return home Aug. 2. His bedroom is just as he left it. He had plans to work alongside his mother as a firefighter at the Swartz Creek Fire Department like he had in the past.
Brandon J. Webb was good at a lot of things. “He was an amazing student,” said his older brother, Austin W. Christofferson. “He loved baseball. He liked to pitch. And he loved painting Warhammer figurines. He always wanted to be a Marine. He admired his brother’s initiative. “He led by example,” he said. “He put off a real example of how to live your life. Sad, but I understand. Freedom isn’t free.”
He had always wanted to be a Marine, even when he was a little kid,” his mother Ann Christofferson said. When Webb told his mom he had joined, “I was scared to death for him, but I wanted him to know he had all of my support,” she said.
Christofferson said she talked to her son last week. “He was joking and laughing. But he had also seen stuff he hoped he never had to see again. The only thing he hated was not being able to sleep in a bed.”.
Webb grew up in Tempe and attended McClintock High School his freshman and sophomore years, where he pitched and played first base on the baseball team. When his mother moved to Michigan, he followed, but missed friends in Arizona so much that he returned to the Valley for his senior year. “We were pretty much inseparable,” said Private Marcus Otero, 20, of Mesa. Webb lived with Otero’s family during senior year. “He was the closest thing to a brother I’ve ever had.”
Otero said Webb’s death still doesn’t seem real. “He had all kinds of things going for him. He was almost done with Iraq. He was even figuring out what kind of car he wanted to get when he came home,” Otero said. “The last thing he said was, ‘I’m almost ready to come home. I’ll see you soon.’ ”