Army 1st Lt. Josh Hyland, a 1992 graduate of Loyola Sacred Heart High School who held bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Montana, died in the attack.
He was 31, the son of Marty Hyland and Linda Hyland, both of Missoula.
He signed up Sept. 12.
"He really wanted to make a difference in the world and felt he was," said his mother. "And he was excited about it."
"He wanted every country to enjoy the freedom he knew," said his brother, Rick, a history teacher in Nampa, Idaho.
Josh regularly e-mailed his brother about the life and culture of Afghanistan so Rick could share it with his students.
"He told me once he was either going to do his four years in the Army and then get his degree, enter the corporate world and fight his way to the top, or he was going to stay in and become a general," said his father, who served in Vietnam from 1969-71. "And I have no doubt he'd have made it."
Hyland was riding in a convoy of armored Humvees when the bomb exploded under the small bridge.
"It was an enormous remote-controlled bomb," Bashir Ahmad Khan, the government chief in Zabul province's Daychopan district, told the Associated Press. "The American vehicle was tossed into the air and off the bridge. It's totally destroyed, as is the bridge."
Three more American soldiers were wounded by shrapnel from secondary explosions as they tried to pull the four soldiers out of the burning Humvee, according to a military statement.
Hyland entered UM after graduating from Loyola and majored in microbiology and Spanish.
"He took them because he enjoyed both, but he had no idea what he wanted to do," said his father, Marty. "So after two years he decided to join the Army."
He met his wife, Lanie, while he was stationed in Savannah, Ga. They were married in 1997 and Hyland later adopted her son, Dylan, now 13.
The family returned to Missoula after his discharge, and Josh briefly worked in his father's business, Timberline Woodworks, before he enrolled at UM and switched to a business major.
He and a friend also started a business, a drop-in day care called Little Griz Clubhouse, during that time.
"He was a great person and a good friend," said Eric Schwenk, his business partner in the day care and longtime friend. "He was the type of friend not too many people have, and he loved his family."
"He lived for his friends and family," said another pal from high school, Ken Miotke. "He was an all-around good guy. He never had kids but he adopted Dylan, and as far as he was concerned, Dylan was his, and Josh was Dad to Dylan."
Hyland spent a year in Korea after earning his commission, then was stationed in Italy, and was deployed to Afghanistan at the end of March.
He most recently was in charge of not just his own platoon but a platoon of Afghan soldiers as well, plus 50 Afghan police officers.
Like his father, who was pictured in Life magazine during the Vietnam War, Josh made the front page of the New York Times in June, where he was quoted in a story about the war and pictured talking with Afghan elders.
He is the second Missoulian to die in the war in Afghanistan. Pfc. Kristofor Stonesifer was one of the first two casualties of the war, dying with another soldier in a helicopter crash in Pakistan in October 2001.
After Sunday's explosion, the death of American servicemen and women in Afghanistan now stands at 288.
Lanie and Dylan are en route to Missoula from Italy, and services are pending.
"He died fighting for the rights of a country that he thought deserved the same rights that he had," Lanie wrote in her personal Web log before departing for Missoula. "He is my love. He is my life. He is a husband. He is a father. He is a son. He is a grandson. He is a nephew and cousin. He is a soldier. And he is an American hero."
Reporter Vince Devlin can be reached at 523-5260 or at vdevlin@missoulian.com
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