Via Daily Mail, KARE, Fox6:

SGT CARSON HOLMQUIST
Active duty
From: Polk, Wisconsin.
Entered service: January 2009
Occupation: Automotive maintenance technician
Deployments: Afghanistan (September 2013 to May 2014)

Sgt. Carson Holmquist grew up in Grantsburg, where his parents still live. Susan Holmquist told KARE 11 that military personnel arrived at their door at 7 p.m. Thursday and told them of Carson’s death. She said that she and her husband are understandably overwhelmed, and are “just trying to make it through the day.”

Josh Watt, who was principal of Grantsburg Sr. High School when Carson attended, called it a “tough day in Grantsburg,” a place Watt describes as a “very patriotic community.” He tells KARE 11 that Holmquist graduated in 2008 and played football all four years at Grantsburg, starting the last two at defensive back. Principal Watt, who also served as football coach, says Carson was an avid sportsman who enjoyed fishing and hunting, and was very connected to the outdoors.

“He was a great young man,” Watt said. “A hard working young man.”

Watt says he vividly remembers when Holmquist paid a return visit to school after boot camp, in his dress blue uniform. He recalls that Holmquist was very proud of his accomplishment of becoming a Marine.

Sgt. Carson Holmquist’s Facebook page featured an image of a waving American flag. His country — and serving — were clearly very much part of who he was.

He enlisted in the Marines in January 2009 and had already had two tours — one in 2013, the other in 2014 — in Afghanistan. Holmquist got numerous recognitions for his work; the military identified him as an automotive maintenance technician.

Holmquist leaves behind a wife, Jasmine, and a 2-year-old son Wyatt. At the time of his untimely death, he and his young family were living in Jacksonville, North Carolina where he was stationed at Camp Lejeune.

His wife and son welcomed him home from deployment last July, his little boy wearing what look like his father’s combat boots next to a sign that says, “We miss you Daddy.” In another, he holds up a sign saying “Welcome home Daddy.”

His mother has her own sign that read, “We’ve waited 244 days for this moment. Welcome home Sgt. Holmquist.”

Friends also paid tribute to the fallen Marine on Facebook, posting kind words like ‘You will be missed bud’.