It may look like an ordinary field, but to the McAnulty family it’s much more.

A weapons training range at Quantico, a Marine Corps base in Virginia about 35 miles from Washington, D.C., has been dedicated to Master Sgt. Brian P. McAnulty, the former Vicksburg resident killed last year in Iraq.

The 39-year-old McAnulty, a 1985 graduate of Warren Central High School and a soccer standout, had been a Marine for 19 years and had served as a weapons training instructor.

Dr. Paul Mlakar of Vicksburg, a friend of the McAnultys, attended Friday’s dedication. The event, Mlakar said, made him realize how many lives McAnulty had touched.

&#8220There were busloads of family, friends and Marines to witness this event,” he said. &#8220He was just a natural-born leader in the Marines. Everyone who served with him learned something.”

Capt. Debra Gomez was one such Marine. She and McAnulty served together at Quantico for more than a year.

Within a month of his death in December 2006, the entire base, she said, wanted to do something to keep his memory alive.

&#8220He had a direct influence on the Marines who came through Quantico,” Gomez said. &#8220And that’s between 800 and 900 a year.”

Brian McAnulty’s parents, Bob and Fran McAnulty, who lived in Vicksburg from the mid- to late-1970s and now reside in Kernersville, N.C., also traveled to Quantico for the dedication. Bob McAnulty said he and his wife knew how special their son was, but they hadn’t realized until recently the full impact he had on his colleagues.

&#8220We heard from hundreds of Marines after his death,” Bob McAunlty said. &#8220He made a difference in their lives, and they used every adjective you could think of to describe him. He was such a passionate Marine. He accomplished more in his 39 years than I probably have in my 69 years.”

Lt. Col. Franklin D. Baker, who escorted McAnulty’s body back to the United States, delivered the dedication speech.

&#8220There is a reason why this memorial is here – on a field in the middle of nowhere,” he said during the ceremony. &#8220This is Range 12, where Master Sgt. McAnulty did his best work – far from the classroom, far from the office, out here, on a range, teaching Marines how to use their weapons.”

McAnulty was about a year short of retirement eligibility when he was aboard a CH-53 helicopter that crashed in Iraq’s Anbar Province. He died of his injuries within hours.

He served from 2003 until 2005 at Quantico as an instructor and had been assigned to the USMC base at Twentynine Palms, Calif., from which he was deployed to Iraq in August or September as a member of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force.

He had previously served a combat deployment during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and served as a security guard aboard the aircraft carrier the USS John F. Kennedy. Other postings included U.S. embassies in Paraguay; Seoul, South Korea; Budapest, Hungary; Bujumbura, Burundi; and Bogota, Colombia.