By Rusty Nixon

Correspondent

PLYMOUTH — A gunshot fired in California has Plymouth residents grieving as they mourn the loss of native son and Marine Corps L. Corporal Cameron Babcock.

Babcock’s parents, Jeff and Ann of Plymouth, were informed by the Marines that their son had died Sunday in an accidental gun discharge while in his barracks at Twentynine Palms Marine Base in California.

“They didn’t give us a lot of details because they have an ongoing investigation,” said Cameron’s father, Jeff. “What they told us is that his roommate had a personal firearm that went off accidentally. He had just gotten back from overseas. He makes it through Iraq and now…”

Cameron, a 2006 graduate of PHS, had just returned from Ramadi, Iraq where he and his unit had been deployed to train Iraqi police and help stabilize the region.

“He was actually looking forward to going back,” said Jeff. “He was waiting to be deployed there or Afghanistan.”

Jeff knows how his son would want to be remembered.

“He believed in what he was doing,” he said. “He wanted his life to make a difference in making the world a better place. I know he was proud of what he was doing.”

Cameron had returned to Twentynine Palms in late November where the family greeted him warmly.

“We were there when he got off the plane and we spent a week with him there in California, we had Thanksgiving with him and his friends,” said Jeff. “We got to meet a lot of his friends and members of his unit and got close to many of them. My wife called them ‘her boys’.”

Cameron was able to return to Plymouth for three weeks at Christmas time.

“We are just thankful to have had time with him,” said Jeff.

Jeff and Ann’s thoughts are also with their son’s comrades.

“We feel so very sorry for the guys in his unit; I know they are probably very upset by this. They were all very close,” said Jeff. “They haven’t been able to contact us because of the investigation, but one of the mothers of the guys in his unit called and told us they were broken up by this.”