James Arellano

Tuesday, August 22 2006 @ 08:10 AM EDT

Billings Gazette -- CHEYENNE, Wyo. - A U.S. Army soldier from Cheyenne has died in Iraq, his family says.

An explosive killed Pfc. James Arellano, 19, on Thursday while he was on a foot patrol, his family said in a copyright story published Sunday by the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. He died south of Baghdad, according to the newspaper.

The Associated Press reported last Thursday that one soldier had been killed when a roadside bomb exploded near a foot patrol south of Baghdad. The Department of Defense wouldn't confirm on Sunday that Arellano was that soldier.

Arellano, a 2005 graduate of Cheyenne Central High School, married Jaime Smith in March while he was assigned to Fort Hood, Texas. She was finishing her senior year in high school when they married.

In an interview with the Tribune-Eagle, Smith recalled that for their wedding dinner, they went to the International House of Pancakes. She said her husband had chocolate chip pancakes and she had biscuits and gravy.

Smith said she talked to him almost every other day by cell phone while he was in Iraq, and that they communicated by e-mail, as well.

"He didn't like it there, but he dealt with it," she said.

Arellano's family emphasized that he accomplished much during his life.

"Don't be sorry for my brother," Andrew Arellano said. "He wasn't a sorry person. He lived his life for all of us. He died for all of us - you, me, your kids and my kids to come."

Diana Arellano, James Arellano's mother, said, "We have to be happy James lived his life and had his goals and he strived to meet every one of them.

"He wanted to box, and he boxed," the mother said. "He wanted to join the military, and he got into the Army. He wanted to be married, and he married the love of his life on March 11."

Arellano had followed the path of his father, Jim Arellano, both in becoming a boxer and in serving in the Army.

"He wanted to be just like me," Jim Arellano said. "The only sad part is that he left behind a wife."

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