Marine from Wisconsin among the dead in Tennessee shootings

Sgt. Carson Holmquist grew up in Grantsburg.

According to Holmquist’s Facebook page, the Marine is from Grantsburg, located in Burnett County in far northwestern Wisconsin.

One of the four marines killed in Thursday’s shootings in Chattanooga, Tennessee is from the Northland.

An automotive maintence technician, Holmquist put in two combat tours. High School when Carson attended, called it a “tough day in Grantsburg”, a place Watt describes as a “very patriotic community”.

Watt says he vividly remembers when Holmquist paid a return visit to school after boot camp, in his dress blue uniform. “He was dressed in his blues and very proud of his accomplishment to have become a Marine”. He received medals for his service in Afghanistan.

Holmquist graduated from high school in 2008 in Grantsburg, a community of about 1,300 people, 60 miles northeast of St. Paul and surrounded by the lakes, rivers and woods of western Wisconsin.

The U.S. Marine Corps identified Sgt. Holmquist was also active in football, hunting, and fishing.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) will introduce legislation allowing troops to carry guns on military facilities, in the wake of a shooting in Tennessee that left four Marines dead.

Holmquist’s father, Thomas Holmquist, of Grantsburg, and other relatives declined to comment.

He ordered that flags be lowered on Friday, and remain lowered until sunset on the day of Holmquist’s funeral. David A. Wyatt of Burke, North Carolina; and Lance Cpl.