Maine soldier is killed in Iraq

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Sergeant Corey Dan, 22, of the elite 101st Airborne Division, died Monday in Ramadi in the volatile Sunni Triangle, said his grandmother, Sharon Bouchard. The coordinated attack, involving small-arms fire and a roadside explosion, also killed a second 101st soldier, a division spokeswoman said.

Dan is the 10th soldier from Maine to die in the Iraq war.

''This was going to be his route to the future,'' Bouchard said of Dan's service in the Army. ''It would give him opportunities that he wouldn't have in Maine otherwise.''

Dan was remembered yesterday as a kind young man who volunteered at a nursing home in rural Norway, doted on his family, and tried to protect his loved ones from the reality of his dangerous duty overseas.

He never saw his only child, Austin, who was born in December as Dan prepared to leave for Iraq from Fort Campbell, Ky. Because deployment was imminent, Bouchard said, Dan was denied permission to visit the Indianapolis hospital where his girlfriend gave birth.

''He was heartbroken,'' the grandmother said. ''He was very upset about it.''

Dan, whose first day of basic training was Sept. 11, 2001, reenlisted last year after a combat tour in Afghanistan. His goal was to return to Maine for a career in law enforcement, said Lynda Knowlton, who taught Dan at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, where he graduated in 2001.

''The town is devastated,'' said Knowlton, who spoke with Dan at least once a month during his deployment. ''When he was in Iraq, seeing the little kids, and seeing that they don't have the conditions we have over here, he liked the fact he was helping them.''

Knowlton said Dan would visit her whenever he returned home. As a veteran of the Gulf War, and as a woman whose husband is serving in Iraq and whose son is about to be deployed there, Knowlton knows the perils of military service.

Since his first deployment, Bouchard said, she noticed a change in her grandson when he returned home on leave.

''He was more pensive,'' she said. ''There was certainly a spark that wasn't as bright as it used to be.''

When she told Dan of her opposition to the war, Bouchard said, he spoke of his commitment to serve his country. Bouchard said she respected his patriotism, but, ''I feel my grandson is another dead soldier for Halliburton,'' the mammoth US energy company that is heavily involved in Iraq reconstruction work.

When Dan called last month to wish her a happy birthday, Bouchard recalled, her grandson said he ''was depressed, didn't want to be there, but would do what he had to do because he was a man of honor.''

Norway's first fatality in Iraq has made the war real for her small town, Bouchard said.

''It's hit this community very, very hard,'' she said. ''Any time a native son or daughter is killed, it brings it home. Until then, it's just a name in a newspaper.''

Brian MacQuarrie can be reached at macquarrie@globe.com.