William John Cahir was born in
Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, and sergeant in the Marine Corps Reserve's
4th Civil Affairs Group, headquartered in Washington, D.C., a unit that specializes in
civil-military operations. Former Assistant U.S. Secretary of Defense
Paul McHale described Cahir's military job as "a community organizer while carrying a pack and a rifle." In the 1990s, Cahir had worked for the Southampton Press and Education Daily newspapers, as well as for the
United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions under Sen. Kennedy. He had also previously worked for former Senator
Harris Wofford (D-Penn.). In 2005, he was named one of "Pennsylvania's Most Influential Reporters" by the Pennsylvania political news website
PoliticsPA. Cahir had previously also deployed to Iraq as a Marine reservist, serving in
Ramadi August 2004 to March 2005; and in
Fallujah September 2006 to April 2007. In January 2008, Cahir resigned from his journalism job to run for Congress in
Pennsylvania's 5th congressional district, which included his hometown of
State College. He came in second in the Democratic primary, earning 34.9 percent of the vote. A television campaign commercial humorously depicted the challenge of pronouncing his name “care.” He was deployed to Afghanistan in May 2009. Prior to his deployment, he had been working for consulting firm
Booz Allen Hamilton. Cahir graduated from
Penn State University in 1990 with a degree in English. He married his wife, René E. Browne in 2006. At the time of his death, she was pregnant with twin girls and she was due in December 2009. According to a family spokesperson, Cahir was shot in the neck while Marines entering the town encountered machine gun and small arms fire. The
Associated Press also reported that fighting in Dananeh lasted more than eight hours, but that, by late morning, Marines prepared to conduct the first-ever NATO patrol in Marine-controlled portions of the town, in order to "reach out to civilians possibly huddled in their homes as sporadic but fierce outbursts of intense gunfire continued ...". His military awards included the
Bronze Star Medal for his service in Afghanistan, three
Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, and two
Combat Action Ribbons. He was posthumously awarded the
Purple Heart in September 2009. A memorial fund was established to pay for the family's needs at Bill Cahir Memorial Fund, Box 268, Alexandria, Virginia 22313. ==References==