DAVID P. MAHLENBROCK

Mahlenbrock, 20, of Maple Shade, N.J., died in Kirkuk, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device exploded while he was clearing a route.

Mahlenbrock leaves behind a wife and 10-week-old baby girl.

Melissa Mahlenbrock, 19, told the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, N.J., that her husband promised he would return alive.

It was the only promise to her that he ever broke, she said.

They were 9 years old when the two first met at their hometown elementary school.

"When we first started dating at 14, I told my mom, 'I'm going to marry him,'" Melissa recalled. "Everyone knew it. My whole family knew it. It was the best decision I ever made."

Mahlenbrock's father said his son's job in Iraq was to clear roads and sweep for mines. He told the newspaper that he has been deeply moved by the small-town warmth and support he has received from friends and neighbors.

"He always smiled. He was a strong kid, a nice kid," Russell Mahlenbrock said of his son. "He fell in love real young, kind of like I did. He got married early. His wife was crazy about him. Her parents loved him. They're the ones who came over and broke the news to me on Friday, because the Army had a hard time finding the house."

Russell Mahlenbrock's son Andrew, 16, said yesterday that he wants to join the military, too.

"I want to do my duty," Andrew said.

Russell Mahlenbrock's oldest son, Chris, 21, already is in the Army reserves and may be called to serve in Iraq soon.

Mahlenbrock said son David was a wrestler and football player at the town's high school.

"I'm glad Dave is my son. I'm very proud of him and I'm very proud of the people of Maple Shade (N.J.)," Russell Mahlenbrock said. He said he supports the war in Iraq because his son who died there supported it.

"I know we're doing the right thing over there. But it's terrible when these young guys go," said the father.

Melissa Mahlenbrock told the Courier-Post that three days after her young husband left for Iraq in January, she learned she was pregnant.

David saw his little girl for the first time when he came home at the end of September.

"He tried to fit in everything he could," Melissa Mahlenbrock said. "He took her out to dinner. He took her to a movie. He took her to the zoo."

Before he left he made a couple of DVDs for her of bedtime stories, Melissa added, fighting back tears.

"I just want want everyone to know what kind of man he was," she said. "He was one of the best men I have ever met in my entire life.

"My dad said, 'I don't know how you did it, because I'm your father, but you found a man who could love you more than I could,'" she said. "He was my everything. I just really need him."

Meanwhile, friends of Diaz said he was killed while taking on more risk than required. They said that as an armorer, Diaz spent most of his time at Forward Operating Base Orgun-E in Afghanistan in the arms room maintaining and accounting for the weapons assigned to the company.

But after expressing a desire to "get outside the wire," Diaz was made a turret gunner on a Humvee.

The 26-year-old soldier from Rio Hondo, Texas, was killed Wednesday when his Humvee rolled over during a routine patrol about six-tenths of a mile south of Sharona, Afghanistan.

Diaz joined the Army in August 1998 and was assigned to Schofield Barracks three years later.

Spc. John Kelly, a Company B friend of Diaz, said the two became friends about 18 months ago after Diaz's wife and his wife became close friends. The women decided their husbands should become friends as well.

Kelly said the first night the two couples got together, they sat on Kelly's back porch until 2 a.m. talking and playing cards.

Kelly said he later learned that Diaz loved to sing along with a karaoke machine, although he was not a particularly gifted vocalist.

Capt. John Sego, Diaz's company commander, remembered Diaz as a fine soldier, one in a perpetually good mood and always quick with a joke.

"Sometimes, I would ask him to do something and he would take off running to accomplish it before I had the opportunity to finish explaining what needed to be done," Sego said.

He said Diaz never complained about maintaining the company's weapons in Afghanistan, but learned Diaz wanted to experience what other soldiers were experiencing on patrol outside the base. Sego made him his gunner.

Sego said that over several month's time, Diaz endured countless hours patrolling across the countryside on rough terrain in harsh weather with the "imminent threat of enemy attack," and never complained.