Pennsauken Marine killed in Iraq

Four Marine Corps officials arrived at a house in Pennsauken early yesterday to deliver the awful news: Cpl. Terry Allen, 21, had been killed in Iraq.

Allen, a former football player and track sprinter at Bishop Eustace Preparatory School, was due home Tuesday after his second combat stint in Iraq.

He was at Al Asad Air Base in Anbar province, apparently ready to leave, when a bullet killed him at 1:55 a.m. local time Friday, his family said.

"This supposedly was a safer area," said his father, John Allen.

It appeared, he said, that a sniper had shot his son. "That's what it sounds like to us," he said.

Allen, who signed up for the Marines while in school, got married in January. He had met his wife, Catherine, from Upstate New York, as a pen pal while on duty in Iraq.

"She's taking it pretty hard," John Allen said.

Allen, who reenlisted while in Iraq, expected to be promoted this winter, his father said.

He graduated from Bishop Eustace in 2004. His sister, Shannon, graduated from the 750-student school two years later.

Word of Allen's death spread quickly yesterday among alumni in South Jersey, said Tori Wishnick, the athletic director.

"He was a nice kid. It's just going to affect everybody," Wishnick said. "It's just so shocking."

On the football team, Allen was a running back, receiver and defensive back.

He stood 5-foot-9 and weighed 165 pounds, but he was a heavy hitter, said Ryan Carrozza, who played with Allen on the team and is now an assistant coach.

Allen prided himself on his fitness. That was one reason he wanted to be a Marine, his father said.

Said Carrozza: "His biceps were popping. He had washboard abs. And he could run for miles."

John Allen said the Marines had told him and his wife, Connie, that their son's remains would be returned to Dover Air Force Base early in the week. Funeral arrangements were pending.