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‘Lioness’ killed by bomb

A female Marine who died in Iraq’s Anbar province Feb. 7 was killed at a checkpoint while participating in the Corps’ Lioness program, according to a Feb. 23 Marine Corps news release.

Cpl. Jennifer M. Parcell, a landing support specialist with Okinawa, Japan-based Combat Logistics Regiment 3, assumed her billet with the Lioness program Feb. 1, according to a spokesman for III Marine Expeditionary Force on Okinawa. The program uses female Marines from different military occupational specialties to search Iraqi woman at checkpoints.

Parcell, who was a few weeks shy of returning to Okinawa, was killed when an Iraqi woman she was searching detonated an explosive vest, the release said.

Parcell was the fifth female Marine to be killed in Iraq since the war began in 2003.

The last time the Corps lost Marines in the Lioness program was June 23, 2005, when Cpls. Holly Ann Charette, 21, and Ramona M. Valdez, 20, were killed when their convoy was hit by a car bomb.