Capt. Patrick Rapicault was born a French citizen. He died an American. The 34-year-old Marine Corps officer, a Carlsbad resident, was among Camp Pendleton-based Marines killed in enemy fighting in Iraq this week. Military officials said Rapicault, the commanding officer of his unit, died Monday in Ramadi, which is in the Al-Anbar province.

On Thursday, Rapicault's widow, Vera Rapicault, tried to remain strong in the face of his death -- "he's in heaven, telling me to," she said. She said the Marine Corps told her he died in a suicide bombing attack. Two other Marines died with him, she said.

The widow last spoke to her husband when his phone call woke her at 12:04 a.m. on Monday.

"He said, 'I was thinking about you and I love you with all my heart,' " she said.

The Marines, she said, told her that her husband died at about 6:45 a.m. Pacific Standard Time -- just hours after the couple's last conversation.

"He said, 'I would love to come home and see you, but I am satisfied and happy with what I am doing.' I am at peace with that,' " Vera Rapicault said of their last exchange, a hurried phone call.

Patrick Rapicault was born in France, and came as a foreign exchange student to the United States -- to Mississippi, to be exact, and his use of the colloquialism "y'all" always came with his thick French accent. The young immigrant later attended college there, earning a degree in business.

But his heart was with the military, his wife said, and he joined the Marines. At about 25, Patrick Rapicault became an American citizen, and was thus able to pursue his dream of becoming an officer.

Vera Rapicault, a 1984 Vista High School graduate, met her "gorgeous" husband-to-be at a barbecue six years ago.

After an engagement capped by their wedding at St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Oceanside -- in his dress blues that day, "he was more pretty than me," Vera Rapicault said -- the couple was sent to the East Coast. They eventually worked their way back to North County and bought a Carlsbad condo earlier this year.

Patrick Rapicault was "gung-ho" about the military, and about his deployment to Iraq, she said.

"He ate, drank and slept the military," she said. "He was the kind of man who wanted to be in the military, the kind of man you would want to be out there (in Iraq)."

She said her husband had been in Iraq once before, and was injured with second degree burns in a bombing.

Vera Rapicault said Thursday that when he died, her husband was the commanding officer of his unit's weapons company in the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.

In a story written a few weeks ago, a military publication on the Marine Corps Web site referred to Rapicault as the commanding officer of his unit's Weapons Company. However, information provided by Camp Pendleton this week stated that Rapicault was the assistant operations officer. Pendleton officials said it was possible that Rapicault had become the commanding officer.

Vera Rapicault is planning her husband's memorial, which she said she hopes will be next week at the same Oceanside church in which they married. He will be buried on Nov. 30 in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Patrick Rapicault was an honest man, she said, and a tough guy with a big heart, one who saw the Marines he led as "his boys."

"I've never known anyone quite like him," she said, "and I don't think I ever will again. … I loved knowing he loved me."

The sting of his death is still fresh, but Vera Rapicault holds tight to her knowledge that the man she calls her hero died doing what he believed in.

"Even though I knew he loved me and loved life, he was willing to put down his life for our country," she said. "It puts him in a totally different category. … He was fearless."

Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 740-3517 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com.