For Maine soldier in Afghanistan, the biggest fear becomes reality

Army Specialist Christopher M. Wilson, a Maine resident with Massachusetts ties, wrote in a Web profile that his worst fear was not returning from Afghanistan to see his 4-year-old daughter.

That fear became a grim reality Thursday when Wilson, 24, died after a rocket-propelled grenade exploded near his position during a firefight in Korengal. Three other US soldiers were wounded in the attack, according to an Army spokesman.

Wilson, who enlisted in the Army in September 2002 and trained as a rifleman, was deployed to Afghanistan in March 2006 with the First Battalion, 32d Infantry Regiment, Third Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division. The unit had been scheduled to return in February, but its tour was extended until June, said Benjamin Abel, a spokesman for the 10th Mountain Division, which is based at Fort Drum, N.Y.

Wilson was born in North Dakota, spent the 1997-98 academic year at North Quincy High School, and lived in South Hadley, Chicopee, and Bangor, according to family friends and the Defense Department.

Before enlisting, Wilson studied culinary arts in Bangor with the Penobscot Job Corps, said Monique LaRiviere, a family friend from South Hadley. Wilson's daughter, Jayden, lives in Maine, and his mother and stepfather live in Chicopee, LaRiviere said. A sister lives in Texas.

"He was a very good friend of my son, pretty much his best friend," LaRiviere said. "He was a really great kid, very upbeat and outgoing and friendly."

Wilson's enthusiasm for the Job Corps, LaRiviere said, encouraged her son, Tom Burke, to follow him into the program.

"He was always trying to push my son into something better," LaRiviere said of Wilson's encouragement for her child, who was three years younger than his friend. "He would say, 'You should do what I did, because I'm really happy this way.' He really did a lot for my son. We're truly sorry to see him gone."

LaRiviere said that she saw Wilson in November, when he visited Massachusetts on leave, and that the soldier's loyalty to his comrades was impressive.

"He was happy to be home, but he was also feeling edgy to get back there, because he knew they were in a bad place," LaRiviere said. "He felt like he was leaving them in the lurch."

Wilson had been stationed in a remote, dangerous outpost near the Pakistan border, where his unit is trying to curb the cross-border movement of Taliban and Al Qaeda insurgents, said Abel, the division spokesman.

In Maine, Governor John E. Baldacci has ordered flags flown at half-staff at Wilson's funeral, said spokesman David Farmer . "We will offer every support possible to Specialist Wilson's family," Baldacci said in a statement. "There is a young girl who has lost a father, and it's heartbreaking."