LORENA (March 27, 2009)—During a ceremony Friday, the Lorena Post Office was renamed in honor of fallen Marine Gunnery Sgt. John D. Fry, 28, a Lorena native who died in the explosion of a homemade bomb in March 2006 in Iraq’s then-volatile Anbar Province.

Fry, who was assigned to the 8th Engineer Support Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, II Marine Expeditionary Force, from Camp Lejeune, N.C., left behind his mother, wife and three young children.

Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, who authored the bill that renamed the facility the “Marine Gunnery Sgt. John D. Fry Post Office Building,” was at the ceremony Friday morning.

Fry was born in Lorena in 1977 and served in Iraq as an ordinance disposal technician where he safely defused hundreds of bombs, saving hundreds of lives, Edwards said.

He was seriously wounded, but turned down a Bronze Star and a ticket home, Edwards said.

He died seven days before he was to return home, after volunteering for one more assignment to defuse three more explosive devices.

He successfully defused two bombs, but insurgents had hidden a fourth bomb under the third and it blew up and killed him, Edwards said.

Fry was buried will full military honors in Rosemound Cemetery in Waco