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thedrifter
03-13-06, 08:48 AM
Family suffers second loss from war
Sons die in Cambodia 'killing fields'and a suicide bombing in Fallujah

By MERRILL BALASSONE
BEE STAFF WRITER

Last Updated: March 13, 2006, 06:39:59 AM PST

Sim Long lost his first son, only a few months old, when he starved to death in a labor camp in the Cambodian countryside.

Now, Long waits for the casket carrying another son, 22-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Bunny Long, to come home to Modesto.

Long was killed Friday after a suicide bomber drove a truck filled with explosives into a building he was guarding near Fallujah in Iraq's al-Anbar province.

Sim Long was once a soldier, fighting with the Cambodian army to resist the Khmer Rouge insurgents. He was proud when his son decided to join the Marines.

"Bunny always wanted to be a soldier," said his brother Bunna Long, 31.

Bunna recalls his brother begging for an army costume when he was 6 years old. A photo of him wearing it sits next to his military portrait in the family's house.

Bunna said he also had aspirations for a military career, but his father urged him to finish his education.

"We always felt like we needed to give something back for all the things we've received," he said. "My brother paid the ultimate price."

The Department of Defense has yet to release Bunny Long's name as a casualty in the attack Friday, but family members said two uniformed Marines notified them at their west Modesto home that morning. The Marines said Long was guarding a building when a bomb exploded and the building collapsed.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

Bunny Long, a 2002 graduate of Modesto High, was described by his brother as "funny and spontaneous," always surrounded by lots of friends.

"Family and friends were everything to him," Bunna said.

Sim Long's family forged unbreakable bonds as they fought to survive in Pol Pot's labor camps in the mid-1970s. They were forced to work for 12 hours daily for two years and were denied adequate food and medicine.

Nearly a quarter of the country's population, as many as 1.7million people, were executed or died from starvation, overwork or disease. Sim Long's baby boy was one of them.

In 1979, when the Vietnamese toppled the Khmer Rouge, Sim Long, his wife, Yen Chea, and his children Sokha, Sokhom and Bunna escaped through fields full of land mines to refugee camps on the border with Thailand. They eventually came to the United States.

Bunny Long was born in Memphis, Tenn. His mother worked cleaning houses, and his father picked up odd jobs such as welding or woodworking to support the family.

Neither Sim Long, 60, or Yen Chea, 51, spoke English, so they often relied on their children to translate. The family moved to Modesto in 1985.

"Life was really hard for them," said Sokha Long, 26. "To have gone through all that and to be able to come to this country, and now my brother passes away.

"It's really hard for my mother, because this is her second son who has passed away."

Bunny Long was the 13th area soldier to die in the war on terrorism. The last, 31-year-old Army Sgt. 1st Class Chad Gonsalves of Turlock, was killed Feb. 13 in Afghanistan.

Long was assigned to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

Marines have suffered a heavy death toll of late — 30 percent of those killed in the past month compared to 23 percent overall.

Four of the five deaths reported in the past week have been Marines.

Two other Marines, including one based at Camp Lejeune, were killed last week in al Anbar. Both were victims of improvised explosive devices.

Bee staff writer Merrill Balassone can be reached at 578-2337 or mbalassone@modbee.com.

Rest In Peace

Ellie