A Marine decorated earlier this year as one of the service’s top combat instructors was shot and killed Sunday in an off-duty traffic confrontation near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Marine Staff Sgt. Dylan Rasmussen, 31, was riding a motorcycle in Onslow County, North Carolina, which is home to Lejeune, when he was confronted and shot by a local man, according to police.
The Onslow County Sheriff’s Department charged a local man, James Wells, 43, with second-degree murder in the shooting, according to a news release.
Rasmussen was a combat instructor at the Marine School of Infantry East in January when he was named the service’s Runner-up Marine Combat Instructor of the Year. Rasmussen shook hands with Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith as Smith awarded him a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal at a ceremony in Virginia.
A GoFundMe page for Rasmussen said he met his wife as a sophomore in high school, and the couple had two sons.
“He was a devoted husband and a loving father,” the page said. “He often spoke of how he looked forward to riding motorcycles with his sons as they grew older and spending the rest of his life with his wife.”
According to the Raleigh News & Observer, Wells and Rasmussen engaged in a confrontation as they drove on a public highway. Wells then stopped his car and a “verbal altercation” led to Wells shooting Rasmussen in the chest. Rasmussen was taken to Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, according to an earlier post from the sheriff’s office on Oct. 19. Wells was arrested later in the day.
A local news report said Rasmussen had just recently purchased his motorcycle.
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It was unclear if Rasmussen was still assigned as an instructor a the School of Infantry East. An email to the Marine Corps seeking Rasmussen’s service record was not immediately returned by Marine public affairs officials, who have drastically reduced public information operations during the government shutdown.
In photos from the Commandant’s award ceremony, Rasmussen wore ribbons indicating that, along with the commendation medal from Smith, he had been awarded two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals and the Presidential Unit Citation. The latter is a decoration generally reserved for members of units that perform exceptionally well in combat, but it was unclear without further records when he might have earned that award.
