“He believed very strongly in what our country’s doing, and we had just talked to him Tuesday,” his mother, Jenifer Allbaugh, told The Oklahoman from her home in Whitehouse, Texas.

Allbaugh is the nephew of Joe Allbaugh, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during President George W. Bush’s first term in office. A native of Blackwell, Joe Allbaugh served as Bush’s chief of staff while he was governor of Texas and later became part of Bush’s “Iron Triangle” of loyal Texas aides when Bush was elected president.

Jeremy Allbaugh is the first member of his Marine unit to die in combat in Iraq, his mother said.

The unit had been in Iraq about four months.

“They were doing good things over there, and we don’t see that in the news or media,” his mother said. “There’s a lot of progress being made, she said. “I wish more people would talk to our boys who are in it and not our politicians because they see it firsthand. They’re building schools and hospitals.”

Lt. Jason Allbaugh said his brother “always wanted to be in the military since I can remember. It’s something he wanted.”

Jeremy Allbaugh graduated in 2004 from Harrah High School, where he was a member of the school’s baseball team, said assistant principal Kenneth Riddle.

“He was a great baseball player, a great student and a great athlete,” Riddle said.

“We were just saying how fortunate we’ve been to have so many young men go overseas and serve in the military and return home, and then this happened.”