{"id":206626,"date":"2026-03-06T02:43:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T02:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/206626\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T02:43:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T02:43:29","slug":"sacramento-soldiers-presumed-death-in-iran-war-adds-to-california-gold-star-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/206626\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento soldier’s presumed death in Iran war adds to California Gold Star families"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. Army Reserve Chief Warrant Officer Robert Marzan’s presumed death in Iran adds to the long list of California Gold Star Families who have lost a loved one in the line of duty.<\/p>\n

Marzan, 54, is believed to be among six Army Reserve members killed<\/a> in a drone attack in Kuwait<\/a> on March 1.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon announced Wednesday that Marzan “is believed to be” the sixth soldier who “perished at the scene” in Kuwait. A positive identification is still pending from a medical examiner.<\/p>\n

Marzan, who is from the Sacramento area, graduated from Elk Grove High School in 1989 and was remembered by a classmate as the fabric of their school community.<\/p>\n

He was two months away from retirement after his service spanned three decades. On Wednesday night, CBS News Sacramento went to the home of Marzan’s brother, Vic Marzan, who declined to be interviewed on camera but said his brother “was a lifetime serviceman.”<\/p>\n

“My brother died for our country… Loved his family and his country,” Vic Marzan said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Soldier believed to be killed in Iran war graduated from Elk Grove High<\/p>\n

02:38<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

“We’ve been thrust into this group that none of us applied for.”<\/p>\n

A Gold Star Families Memorial Monument<\/a> was unveiled in Sacramento in 2025, honoring service members’ lives that were lost and their families.<\/p>\n

Mike Anderson worked to create the monument that serves as a symbol of service and sacrifice and as a shrine to the shared pain of loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s a terrible journey,” Anderson said. “It’s life-changing.”<\/p>\n

Anderson’s son, Marine Corporal Mike Anderson Jr., was killed in action 22 years ago in Fallujah, Iraq.<\/p>\n

“If I can help one other person, one other family kind of get through this,” Anderson said. “We’re walking this same dark valley together.”<\/p>\n

For Marzan’s family, the gold star status means they have a lot of California company.\u00a0 According to the Gold Star Registry, since World War II, there have been 32,000 California residents who have lost their lives in the line of duty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Anderson, it’s his son’s memory that helps keep him going.<\/p>\n

“I look at it, the strength that my son had, and somehow I’ve got to capture that and keep moving forward,” Anderson said. “I got to keep carrying that torch.”<\/p>\n

Growing strength through their grief, the list of California Gold Star families just got longer.<\/p>\n

“We’ve been thrust into this group that none of us applied for,” Anderson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Army Reserve Chief Warrant Officer Robert Marzan’s presumed death in Iran adds to the long list of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[4106,19378,94837,121,357,123,122,2664],"class_list":{"0":"post-206626","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-elk-grove","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-kuwait","11":"tag-sacramento","12":"tag-sacramento-county","13":"tag-sacramento-headlines","14":"tag-sacramento-news","15":"tag-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}