Marine Pfc. Brian K. Cutter, 19, Devore; Found Unconscious

When Rex Davis volunteered for the foster-care system, he was given four folders. Each one represented a child who needed someone to care for him.

So Davis scrutinized the folders, flipping through the files, trying to imagine the boy behind each. He picked the one labeled Brian K. Cutter -- a 15-year-old about the same height as Davis, with the same blue eyes and the same uncontrollable brown hair.

Davis and his wife, Janice, met with the boy, filled out the required paperwork and eventually took him home.

On May 13, four years later, the Davises filled out another set of papers and waited as the government sent their boy home again for the last time.

Marine Pfc. Cutter, 19, was found unconscious next to the billeting tent where his unit slept in Al Asad, Iraq.

Officially, the military said the investigation is ongoing and the cause of death undeclared, but Rex Davis said his son was electrocuted while repairing a coolant system for the tent.

Cutter was assigned to the 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton.

He was born on Dec. 16, 1984, in Dayton, Ohio, to a mother employed by the military, but grew up in the foster-care system, starting when he was 6.

After spending his childhood bouncing from group home to group home, Cutter finally found a family and home with the Davises, who owned a 2-acre ranch in Devore. “We thought that by giving him the most normal home, it would somehow make everything OK for him,” Rex Davis said. “We tried to decorate his room masculine.”

Cutter put up pictures of military aircraft and a fake speed limit sign with an infinity symbol instead of the numbers. He had two lifelong dreams: to become a Marine and to own a motorcycle.

In August, Cutter enlisted in the Marine Corps, and last Christmas Rex and Janice Davis gave him a black leather Harley Davidson jacket. He was still lacking a bike to go with it, but Cutter told the couple that it was perfect and bought matching black boots. “He wore that jacket everywhere,” Rex Davis said. The only place he couldn’t wear it was in Iraq.

Cutter completed basic training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego and was deployed to Iraq on May 8. He called home often -- from the airport, then from Germany. His last phone call was from Kuwait, and the Davises anxiously waited for the next one.

On May 13, after Cutter had crossed into Iraq, the Davises’ phone rang again. But it was a chaplain and a sergeant waiting by the ranch gate. “So I put the dogs up, opened the gate and waited for them to come,” Rex Davis said. “We knew what to expect. It was the worst day of our lives.”

Before Cutter left for Iraq, the Davises had signed papers, trying to officially adopt him as their son. “Now we’re trying to see if the judge will approve it posthumously,” Rex Davis said.

Since Cutter’s death, the couple have left his room untouched, unable to face the reminders. The leather jacket remains where Cutter left it, carefully folded in a box. “He never did get to buy that motorcycle,” Rex Davis said.

Cutter also is survived by a half brother, Frank Kirsch, and a half sister, Jenifer Kirsch.

A funeral service will be held at 11:15 a.m. Tuesday in the amphitheater at Riverside National Cemetery, 22495 Van Buren Blvd., Riverside.