The father and stepmother of fallen U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Seth Sharp spoke out about their son Sunday, saying he “put his whole heart into everything.”

Rick and Tiffany Sharp of Adairsville said their son Seth had always loved the military and wanted more than anything to serve.

“It was a challenge that he wanted to face and see if he could succeed at,” Rick Sharp said. “He was proud to be a Marine and be called a Marine.”

Seth Sharp, who played freshman football for Adairsville High School and enlisted with the Marines at the age of 17, had previously served a tour of duty in Iraq.

During his tour in Iraq, his father said, he asked for coloring books and crayons for Christmas.

“It wasn’t a moment later that he said it wasn’t for him — but for the children he’d met in Iraq,” Rick Sharp said. “Something that seems so simple here is a luxury for them, and I made sure the coloring books got to him. He was just that kind of kid.”

Seth Sharp also was a motorcycle enthusiast, his father said, and would often take his fiancée, Katie McMahon of Dalton, out for rides. Rick Sharp said the two were lifelong sweethearts and were planning to marry upon Seth’s return from Afghanistan.

“They were pushed around in baby strollers together, so it was like they were always meant to be together,” he said.

Sharp added his son also was a great lover of sports, enjoying everything from baseball to golf. But the family believes he showed his greatest courage not on the playing field but on the battlefield.

“He knew he would have the opportunity to be in harm’s way, but he never showed he was afraid,” said his stepmother Tiffany Sharp.

“He was a great kid, and he was a hero, and we want everyone to know the sacrifices he laid out his life for,” Rick Sharp said.

R. Dudley Barton & Son Funeral Home has charge of the arrangements, which are still in the planning stage.

Rick Sharp said his son had extended family from Arizona to Alaska, which makes funeral arrangements difficult for the moment. The family was informed Seth’s remains would be returned to Adairsville sometime within the next three to five days, he added.

The Sharps plan to hold the visitation and funeral services at Northpoint Church in Adairsville and to bury their son at East View Cemetery.

Seth Sharp was serving in Company E of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines when he was killed on July 2. He is the third local serviceman killed in action while serving in Afghanistan in recent weeks.

First Sgt. John Blair, 38, of Calhoun, died in Mado Zayi on June 20 during battle when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle.

He was an Army National Guardsman assigned to the 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment based out of Lawrenceville. Graveside services took place Wednesday afternoon in Canton.

In early June, Jeffrey William Jordan, 21, of Cave Spring, who served with the Calhoun-based 108th Cavalry, was one of three soldiers from the Georgia National Guard unit killed in Afghanistan.