Chicago Tribune -- Wyatt Eisenhauer loved music so he taught himself how to play the guitar and overcame dyslexia to win friends and acquaintances' regard as a genius.
Eisenhauer, 26, died Thursday in Mahmudiyah, Iraq, on an escort mission when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle, according to military accounts.
Sam Robinson, a spokeswoman for Fort Riley, Kan., where Eisenhauer was assigned, said he was a cavalry scout with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 70th Armor, 3rd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division.
"Wyatt was an awesome child, a kid that everybody knew,'' his mother, Gay Eisenhauer, said during a telephone interview Friday, her voice trembling. ``He had dyslexia, so Wyatt was like a sponge. He'd seen something or heard something and he absorbed it because he couldn't depend on reading it.''
A 1996 graduate of Pinckneyville High School, Eisenhauer placed first in the state diesel equipment technology competition sponsored by the Vocational Industrial Clubs of America. He later earned a scholarship and attended Southern Illinois University for three semesters of automotive technical training.
"Wyatt was never about him,'' his mother said. "If he seen someone that had car trouble, he would stop whether he knew them or not.''
When Wyatt was 21 and his youngest sister, then 81/2 years old, was diagnosed with rare autoimmune disease that required chemotherapy treatments, he would lie on the floor with her, clean up after her and change her clothes, Gay Eisenhauer said.
"He was a good kid, a good student,'' said Sam Loiacono, industrial education teacher at Pinckneyville High School. "He always worked hard. He was in the construction class that built one of the sheds on the football field and he was just a good high school student.''
Band director Steve Cannedy remembered Eisenhauer as a talented trumpeter.
"He was always a friendly and conscientious student,'' Cannedy said. "It's very shocking, really unbelievable.''
After high school, Wyatt worked laying floors at local businesses and would end up contributing in other ways. He fixed the projectors at a new movie theater in Sparta, and at another site helped a computer technician figure out the wiring for a new system.
"There wasn't anything he couldn't master,'' his mother said.
Wyatt left for basic training on June 1, 2004, and left for Iraq in February, his mother said.
Wyatt is survived by his parents, Fred and Gay, and three sisters.