Lance Cpl. Nicholas C. Kirven

Those dreams of college died with the dreamer, Lance Cpl. Nicholas C. Kirven, 21, who was killed Sunday during a firefight with Afghan insurgents in the Alishang District of Laghman Province.

Family friend Cam McIntyre said Kirven's stepfather, Michael Belle, and his mother, Beth, knew the worst had happened when they saw a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant and Navy chaplain approaching their front door about 9:30 Sunday night.

"He was one of the most wonderful 21-year-olds you're ever going to meet — brave, caring, dedicated to the service and to what he was doing in Afghanistan, which included befriending many of the native people he met there," McIntyre said.

He sent his family an e-mail from the Afghanistan front almost every week, and most contained at least a mention of an Afghan national whom he had met or tried to help, McIntyre said.

The gunnery sergeant told his mother and stepfather that Kirven's unit had been involved in a long firefight about 60 miles east of Kabul, had chased a group of insurgents into a cave and called in air strikes. Kirven, the squad leader, and Cpl. Richard Schoener, 22, of Hayes, La., were ambushed and killed when they entered the cave to see what had become of the insurgents, the gunnery sergeant said.

Kirven was an infantry rifleman assigned to Company K of the Kane'ohe-based 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, which was attached to the Combined Joint Task Force-7 while serving in Afghanistan. Schoener was assigned to the same unit.

He enlisted in the Marine Corps Dec. 13, 2001, and reported to his unit at Marine Corps Base Hawai'i in Kane'ohe March 26, 2003. A Marine Corps recruiter visited Kirven's high school in Richmond, Va., shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

McIntyre said Kirven was due to return home from Afghanistan in less than a month. In addition to his mother, stepfather and father Leo Kirven, Nicholas Kirven is survived by sister Pride, 22, and brother Joseph, 14.