CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — The military says two North Carolina-based Marines have died during combat in Afghanistan.

The Department of Defense said Wednesday that 21-year-old Cpl. Anthony L. Williams of Oxford, Pa., and 28-year-old Cpl. Michael W. Ouellette of Manchester, N.H., died Sunday in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan.

Ouellette’s mother said he was killed by an improvised explosive device, but the military hasn’t released details.

Both Marines were assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune.

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Cpl. Kyle Kusko remembered the time he and Cpl. Anthony L. Williams tried to quit smoking.

“Every time he’d quit, I’d have a pack of cigarettes and come by his room to see if he wanted to smoke, and vice versa. One day he stopped by my room and said, ‘You wanna grab a smoke?’ I said, ‘Man, I’ve quit.’ He said, ‘No one likes a quitter.”’

Williams, 21, of Oxford, Pa., died March 22 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province. He was a 2006 high school graduate and was assigned to Camp Lejeune.

Williams, who was born in Honolulu, had a characteristic sense of humor and was well-liked by all the Marines with whom he served, Kusko said.

“No one had a quarrel with him,” Kusko said. “No one.”

Kusko recalled a time when Williams pulled his armored vehicle so close to Kusko’s that their side mirrors hit.

“I said, ‘You hit me.’ He said, ‘No I didn’t. You hit me.’ I said, ‘How could I have hit you? I wasn’t even moving.’ And he said, ‘Yeah you were. You just don’t know it yet.”‘ Williams is survived by his father, Willie Lee Williams Jr., and his stepmother, Lisa McDonough-Williams.