Army Spc. Phillip Witkowski was accidentally shot while placing a machine gun onto a Humvee, his widow said.

At 23, the mother of two young boys — one 3, the other 3 months — had suddenly become a widow. It seemed unfathomable, even in Afghanistan, which Tina Witkowski and her husband had viewed as safer than the roads of Iraq.

He had been there a only week. He was 24.

The Department of Defense said Witkowski, a cook with the 7th Field Artillery, 25th Infantry Division (Light), was injured in Kandahar on Friday and flown to Homberg, Germany, where he died Saturday. He is the first soldier from Schofield Barracks to die in Afghanistan.

"I always said better Afghanistan than Iraq," Tina Witkowski said today by telephone. "Phil even called me three days before he died because he was on a Humvee with a gun. He told me it was an awesome experience. He told me he was going to come home and it was safe."

The Army told Tina Witkowski that her husband was the victim of an accident while placing a machine gun onto a Humvee, she said.

"For some reason it went off on him," she said. "For some reason the weapon was facing toward him."

The weapon automatically shoots several rounds when fired, she said, but her husband's condition was stable enough that the Army planned to fly Tina Witkowski to Germany, she said.

"I feel like I am supposed to be in Germany now and he is supposed to be alive," she said. "It's not real. I feel like I'm supposed to be there taking care of him."

Tina Witkowski had moved the family from Schofield to Washington earlier this month.

Friends in Hawai'i are struggling with Witkowski’s death. Carolyn Jenkins said it was the last thing she expected to hear.

"We thought this whole time, he was going to be fine," Jenkins said. "And as we said our last goodbyes when he boarded the bus, the whole idea of him not coming back was never in our mind."

Tina Witkowski is one of Jenkins' best friends. They met when they were ninth-graders growing up in Salt Lake because their parents attended Pearl Harbor Korean Baptist Church. But when Witkowski's family moved away, they lost touch, only to be reunited two years ago when Phillip Witkowski was assigned to Schofield.

Jenkins said her friend's new husband was "laid back." It was like having a new brother, she said.

"He was the goofy jokester guy and when he tried to be serious, he couldn't," Jenkins said. "No one would ever take him seriously."

Jenkins and her family often barbecued at their Pearl City Peninsula home with the Witkowskis. Phillip Witkowski was partial to her Korean marinated steaks and that memory makes her smile, Jenkins said.

"I would cut it in kitchen and Phil was always the first in the kitchen to taste it," Jenkins recalled. "And he would say, always, 'This is perfect. It's wonderful.' At times, I can still hear him in the house saying that."