Marine Sgt. Zachariah S. Davis, 25, Twentynine Palms; Killed in Bombing

It was almost a given that Zach Davis would become one of the few, the proud.

With a career Marine as a father, who was stationed for many years at the base in Twentynine Palms, Calif., Davis, 25, joined the Marine Corps in 1998 and rose to the rank of sergeant.

Assigned to the base’s 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Davis was among the first troops in Baghdad in 2003 before the start of the war in Iraq.

“He thought he was doing something really important,” said his father, Terry, a former gunnery sergeant.

But Zach Davis, who had just witnessed the birth of his second son in July, wasn’t thrilled when he received orders to return to Iraq last summer, his father said.

“We talked about it and he said he had a bad feeling, but he’s a Marine and he knew he had to go. He understood,” Terry Davis said.

Zachariah Scott Davis, a vehicle commander, was killed Jan. 6 in enemy action in Al Anbar province, which includes the city of Fallouja. The Defense Department declined to provide details of the incident, but family members were told that Davis was killed by a roadside bomb.

At Twentynine Palms High School, Davis competed on the cross country and track teams. During his senior year, he participated in the city Fire Department’s Explorer program, another decision influenced by his father, who has been an on-call firefighter with the San Bernardino County Fire Department since the mid-1980s.

When he graduated in 1997 and turned 18, Zach Davis joined the county’s Wonder Valley station, just east of the base, where his father is a captain.

Their supervisor, Starlene Javier, said Zach Davis went on numerous fires and calls for medical aid.

He helped seniors in the community with landscaping chores and made time for the many children who wandered into the station from an adjacent park.

“He would enjoy showing them around the firehouse when they came,” Javier said. “He was very personable, very caring for people in the community.”

Perhaps it was because he had six younger siblings, but Davis cared deeply for children. When he first saw his nephew Christian, Davis insisted on holding the infant until he fell asleep, said his brother Marine Cpl. Christopher Davis, 23, of Honolulu, a military police officer stationed in Hawaii.

“He wasn’t just a Marine, he was also a dad. He was one of the best. You couldn’t ask for better,” said Zach Davis’ widow, Angela.

She said he “did cartwheels inside our apartment” when he learned of her first pregnancy, adding that he did not mind changing diapers and substituted military cadence for lullabies.

The couple met five years ago, when Davis was stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Angela Davis said she was so impressed with the good-looking, 6-foot-1 Marine that she joked to a co-worker after their first meeting that she’d marry him one day.

The proposal came unexpectedly early the next year in Oklahoma, where Davis had taken her to meet his mother and other relatives. Without warning, one evening he introduced Angela to two cousins as his “fiancee” and sealed his proposal during the drive home.

The next month, two days after Valentine’s Day, a justice of the peace wed the couple.

Upon his reenlistment in 2002, Davis transferred to the light armored vehicle unit so he could return to Twentynine Palms with his new family, which by then included his first son.

Davis was a romantic guy with a whacky personality -- a cross between Jim Carrey and “Seinfeld’s” Kramer, his wife said. He liked the outdoors, enjoyed Tom Clancy novels and usually had a tin of Copenhagen snuff handy.

He wrote letters or e-mails almost daily when deployed overseas and would often say, paraphrasing the “Toy Story” character Buzz Lightyear, “I love you ... to infinity and beyond!”

Angela Davis said she last heard from her husband on Jan. 3, but they were having phone problems.

The first call got cut off, so he called back twice more to hear her voice.

And he sent two electronic cards via the Internet that day.

She said she would always treasure the one that reads: “No matter what, I’ll be falling in love with you over and over again, every day.”

“He wasn’t just my husband, he was my best friend,” she said, “We were so happy.”

Davis’ funeral was held Friday afternoon, and his casket was carried to the base’s Protestant chapel on one of several fire engines that participated in the service.

In addition to his wife, father and brother Christopher, Davis is survived by sons Landen and Gabriel; his mother, Kathy Owens of Spiro, Okla; brothers Terry Davis Jr. of Wister, Okla., and Jonathan and Jesse Davis, both of Spiro, Okla.; and sisters Sarah Davis of Twentynine Palms and Audra D. Thornburg of Spiro, Okla.