Wells, Larry Lloyd

Larry Lloyd Wells was a 22-year-old from the small community of Mt. Hermon, Louisiana. He served as a Lance Corporal in the United States Marine Corps, assigned to Company C, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 4th Marines (C Co, BLT 1/4), part of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit based at Camp Pendleton, California.

On August 6, 2004, Wells was killed during intense urban combat in the city of Najaf, south of Baghdad. According to U.S. military reports, his unit was engaged in a major operation against the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which had seized control of parts of the city and its revered Imam Ali Shrine.

Operation Iraqi Freedom, the U.S.-led military campaign that began in March 2003, had entered a phase of widespread insurgency by mid-2004. The battle for Najaf in August 2004 was one of the largest and most significant confrontations of that period, involving thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops in sustained urban warfare against a determined militia force.

Wells's death was recorded in official Department of Defense casualty lists. His name is inscribed on the Iraq War Memorial in his home state of Louisiana and is included in the online memorial maintained by the Marine Corps.

Lance Corporal Wells was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart. He is remembered by family and fellow Marines as a dedicated soldier from a rural Southern town.

Lance Corporal Wells was killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003–2010). The conflict concluded in August 2010. See the full roster of those killed in this conflict.

Among those documented in the same conflict: Kennedy, Brian Matthew, Beaupre, Ryan Anthony, Gutierrez, Jose, Waters-bey, Kendall Damon.

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