Beyond the last full measure

by Sgt. 1st Class Amanda H. Johnson
1st Lt. Paul Han
California National Guard Public Affairs

Feb. 16, 2021

SACRAMENTO, Calif. –

There are dates throughout a person’s life which are remembered, some with much more significance than others; markers which hold personal meaning and conjure strong emotions.

For California State Guard Maj. Marc Unger, chaplain, one of these dates is his recent official retirement from the guard, Dec. 5.

However, May 25, 2004, was sadly another critical date for Chaplain Unger and his wife, Lynda. It was the day a casualty assistance team came to their home with the news their son was killed in action at the age of 19. Their son, U.S. Army Spc. Daniel Paul Unger, assigned to the California Army National Guard's 1^st Battalion, 184^th Infantry Regiment was killed in action at forward operating base Kalsu, Iraq.

The small post was in southern Iraq, 20 miles south of Baghdad. It was next to a main supply route used by U.S. and international military forces to transport supplies to service members stationed throughout the country.

The small military post was a blacked-out base, which meant no lights were on past sunset until dawn. Armored tanks roved the perimeter throughout the night. Military service members walked the dirt roads secured by haskell barriers and armed security forces within the small footprint known as Kalsu.

Daniel’s role had been to provide security for a team of Iraqi contractors that tackled plumbing and electrical work on post. One day at 3:30 P.M., incoming fire hit the F.O.B. After the first volley, soldiers reacted as trained and evacuated to bunkers. All but Spc. Unger.

As shrapnel flew and other mortars approached, Daniel got the Iraqis to the bunker and, in the words of his Commanding Officer, “Once the attack started, Daniel placed his own well-being in jeopardy by making sure the civilian workers went inside the protective bunker before he did.” Then the third mortar hit.

Daniel was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star with Valor Device, Purple Heart and Combat Infantryman Badge. The two Iraqis he “herded” to the bunker were saved, said Ch. Unger through a tribute website to his son.

Daniel was the first California Army National Guard combat casualty since the Korean War.  On May 27, 2004 California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered the Capitol flags flown at half-staff in honor of SPC Daniel Unger.

Then, six months later, on Dec. 5, 2004, Marc Unger commissioned in the California State Guard as a Chaplain. He served for 16 years, assigned to six different units, and fulfilled the role as battalion, brigade, and headquarters chaplain. The number of service members he shook hands with and ministered to are beyond a number that can be captured.

“Daniel’s dad had a very different reaction to the news brought by the chaplain on the death notification team that day four years ago,” said Chaplin Norris, a friend of Marc’s. “Pastor Marc decided to become a Chaplain, First Lieutenant Marc Unger. He is a part of the California State Guard and has been attached as the Battalion Chaplain to his son’s former battalion, the 1-184 Infantry of the California Army National Guard.”

“It is now Ch. Unger’s job to occasionally carry the same unimaginable words to other families,” said Norris in regard to being a part of the casualty assistance team during that period in his career. He did so with a sense of love and affection for his own son.

He saw his son’s sacrifice expressed in the words of the Holy Bible, John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends.”

When the Ungers think of their son, who was also a licensed minister, they take comfort in the fact that “Daniel’s life wasn’t taken, he laid it down for his friends: for those he was assigned to guard to be saved, for the Iraqi people to be free from tyranny and for the American people to remain free.”