Growing up in the tiny farm town of Ossian, Iowa, Jeffrey Bohr was a quiet kid who liked horses, enjoyed hunting and fishing, and did a little calf roping.

Later, as an Army Ranger and then a Marine, he parachuted into Grenada, helped oust Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, served in the Gulf War and trained for urban combat by rappelling out of helicopters and learning to float with his hands and feet tied.

Bohr, 39, died April 10 in a seven-hour gun battle in front of a Baghdad mosque. His wife, Lori, also a native Iowan, learned of his death from Marine officials as she was driving from California to Iowa to visit their parents. The couple had no children.

“I was proud of Jeff his whole life,” said his father, Edward Bohr, who lives in Ossian. “He...