Jefferson native killed in Iraqi fighting

A soldier from west-central Iowa is among the 30-some Americans to die fighting in Iraq this week, the 11th Iowan to die in the war. Students at Jefferson-Scranton High School got the news yesterday — 20-year-old Lance Corporal Ben Carman of Jefferson, who joined the Marines after graduating there in 2002 had been killed Tuesday in a gunbattle in the town of Ramadi. School Principal Karen Younie says everyone’s been effected by word of Carman’s violent death in war. She says he was a quiet young man until you got to know him. She says he took a lot of ag-tech classes. Carman’s younger sister is a student at Jefferson-Scranton, though she’s in Mexico right now as an exchange student. Carman’s body is reportedly in an area that’s still under siege and hasn’t yet been recovered.