From the AP: SEEKONK, Mass.- The effort to name the post office in
Seekonk in honor of a local Marine who died in Iraq is one step
closer to reality.

Congressman James McGovern says the U.S. House of
Representatives on Wednesday unanimously passed a bill to name the
facility after Lance Cpl. Eric Valdepenas. The bill now goes to the
Senate.

The 21-year-old Valdepenas was killed in September 2006 when a
roadside bomb struck his vehicle in Al Anbar province.

Valdepenas served in the Marine Reserve's 1st Battalion, 25th
Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, based in Ayer.

He was a graduate of Bishop Hendricken High School in Warwick,
R.I., where he was an honors student and captain of the lacrosse
team, and an engineering student at the University of Massachusetts
in Amherst.

From me: Valdepenas,  the youngest of eight children in his family, was
killed when the vehicle he was traveling in was struck by an improvised
explosive device in Al Anbar province. According to the Marines, the
group was conducting combat operations against anti-Iraqi forces when
its vehicle was hit. Two other servicemen were killed in the blast.

Valdepenas,
a Seekonk resident, attended UMass from September 2003 to September
2005. He was studying toward an engineering degree. Valdepenas joined
the Marine reserves in October 2004 and his Marine unit, based in
Devens, arrived in Fallujah in late March of 2006. His unit was
scheduled to return to the United States in late October, about one
month after Valdepenas was killed.

UMass started a scholarship in his name last year.