Press-Enterprise -- TEMECULA - A 31-year-old U.S. Army Reserve captain from Temecula was killed Saturday in Iraq, family and Department of Defense officials said.

Brian S. Freeman, a civil affairs officer, died from wounds suffered when his team came under fire in Karbala.

Freeman moved to Temecula in 2004, where he lived with his wife, Charlotte, and two children, Gunnar, 2, and Ingrid, 1, and worked as a project manager for KB Home, said his mother, Kathleen Snyder.

At Freeman's house in the Harveston area Tuesday, Snyder said her son felt that serving in Iraq was part of the obligation he signed up for. She said Freeman told his family: "If I have to go there, I'm going to go and try to make a difference."

His family said Freeman was helping the people in the province of Karbala to become independent and that he was pleased to be doing work to improve conditions for civilians, rather than serving in a traditional combat role.

Freeman's family said he did a lot of work in Iraq that went beyond his official duties. His grandmother, Irene Pound, of Solana Beach, recalled a photograph her grandson sent the family of an Iraqi girl posing with food from a care package they sent. He would regularly share those packages with Iraqi civilians, Pound said. He also helped make arrangements for the young son of a Karbala police officer to travel to the United States for heart surgery, Snyder said.

"He makes such an impression on your life," said his mother-in-law, Ginny Mills. "You just don't forget him."

Freeman expected to return from Iraq in April and was collecting letters of recommendation for his applications to graduate school programs, his family said. In one of those letters, the governor of Karbala described how Freeman worked as a liaison between the local government and coalition forces, helping the Iraqi security forces obtain more equipment and training and additional funding for reconstruction projects in the province.

"Freeman has assisted in forming a warmer relationship with the Army ... I think Capt. Freeman genuinely cares about what happens to Karbala and its people," the governor wrote, adding that the captain helped secure death benefits for one of his interpreters killed in action, as well as condolence payments for civilians previously turned down by the Army.

"His experience was as a solider and a statesman," the governor wrote.

Freeman was born in Bakersfield and moved to the San Diego area in 1981, his mother said. He was a 1993 graduate of Torrey Pines High School, and he attended Washington State University for two years, where he was a member of the ROTC. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1999, Snyder said.

Freeman served on active duty five years, assigned first as an armored scout platoon leader at Fort Knox, Ky. He later transferred to Fort Carson, Colo. In 2002, he was accepted into the Army's World Class Athlete Program and assigned to Lake Placid, N.Y., where he trained with Olympic hopefuls from the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation, a Department of Defense news release said.

"He had never done anything like that before," his mother said. But after he saw the bobsledders at the Salt Lake City Olympics, "he said, 'I've got to do that!' " Snyder said.

Freeman started on the America's Cup Bobsledding Team and the next year began competing in skeleton -- a one-person, headfirst luge. He won third place in the America's Cup for Bobsledding at Lake Placid.

He had been a member of the Reserve since spring 2004.

Among the numerous awards he received during his military career are two Army Commendation Medals, two Army Achievement Medals, a National Defense Service Medal and a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. Freeman began mobilizing for Iraq in September 2005 and was assigned to the 412th Civil Affairs Battalion from Whitehall, Ohio, a unit of the U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command, the release said.

He was home for two weeks over Christmas and had just returned to Iraq this month.

Charlotte Freeman said her husband had always been interested in community service and had planned to pursue a seat on the local school board before he was called up. She was eight months pregnant when her husband learned that he was being sent to Iraq, but he was granted a three-month deferral to spend a couple of months with his baby daughter. He left for training in January 2006 and went to Iraq in April.

"He's the most genuine man that I've ever met," Charlotte Freeman said. "He was just an amazing guy, and he genuinely cared about others."

==Another news story==

Associated Press — An Army Reserve captain who was working to help Iraqis start a beehive venture was among five Americans killed when his meeting was ambushed by gunmen dressed as U.S. troops, relatives said.

Capt. Brian Scott Freeman, 31, died Jan. 20 when his meeting area in the Shiite holy city of Karbala came under attack by mortar and small-arms fire, the Defense Department said Jan. 22. Defense officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment about the conditions surrounding the attack.

Freeman was assigned to the 412th Civil Affairs Battalion, based in Whitehall, Ohio, defense officials said.

Freeman was born in Bakersfield and moved to San Diego after his parents’ divorce, ultimately settling in Temecula, said the soldier’s father, Randy Freeman. The 1999 West Point graduate was on active reserve.

His awards include two Army Commendation Medals, two Army Achievement Medals, National Defense Service Medal and a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. He also earned Combat Action, Air Assault, Parachutist and Marksmanship Qualification badges, said a public affairs specialist with the Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) in Fort Bragg, N.C.

In 2002, Freeman was accepted into the Army World Class Athlete Program at Fort Carson, which trains service members for Olympic teams. He earned a third place in the America’s Cup for bobsledding later that year, defense officials said.

The soldier is survived by his wife and two children, ages 3 and 1.

“He was just a real generous and loving son, loving father,” Randy Freeman said.

==Another news story==

The Associated Press -- “You don’t have to love the war,” Pvt. Johnathon M. Millican wrote on his MySpace page, “but you have to love the warrior.”

He was one of four soldiers killed after militants abducted them Jan. 20 from the governor’s office in Karbala, Iraq, in a sophisticated sneak attack, the military confirmed Jan. 26.

The four soldiers, and a fifth killed in the attack itself, were remembered for their athleticism — one was a bobsledder who competed with the U.S. national team — their compassion and their dedication.

“He always wanted to be in the military,” said Karen Mezger, a friend of 1st Lt. Jacob Fritz’s family and a counselor at the rural Nebraska high school he attended. “He was there because he believed in it.”

The attackers posed as an American security team — speaking English, wearing U.S. military combat fatigues and traveling in the type of sport utility vehicles U.S. government convoys use, U.S. military and Iraqi officials said. The U.S. command initially reported that five soldiers were killed while “repelling the attack” but Jan. 26 confirmed reports from Iraqi officials that four of the soldiers had been taken alive.

Millican, 20, of Trafford, Ala., had been talking with his wife, Shannon, by Web cam the day he was abducted, said Linda Hill of Locust Fork, whom Millican lived with for 2½ years before graduating high school.

“She heard somebody holler for them to run, and John took off. She said it was later that his computer was logged off,” Hill said. Hill said Shannon Millican told her that night her husband had been killed.

Millican, a former high school football player and a member of an airborne artillery brigade, had been in Iraq about three months.

Capt. Brian S. Freeman, who was not abducted but was killed in the attack, was a former member of the Army World Class Athlete Program who competed in bobsled and skeleton with the U.S. national team.

Freeman, 31, of Temecula, Calif., was 16th in the 2003 U.S. skeleton national championships and won a bronze medal as a four-man sled brakeman at a 2002 America’s Cup race.

Freeman was willing to ride with any driver to help them gain experience, “even if that meant crashing a few times,” U.S. Skeleton National Program Manager Steve Peters said Jan. 31. Many of the drivers he helped went on to compete in last year’s Olympics, he said.

Steven Holcomb, the World Cup overall bobsled leader and a 2006 Olympian who was in the WCAP program, called Freeman “one of the greatest men I have ever known.”

“The time I spent with Brian not only made me a better person, but a better athlete,” Holcomb said Jan. 31.

Fritz, 25, of Verdon, Neb., was a 2005 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy who played football and basketball and ran track in high school.

“He was just a very kind, caring, compassionate young man,” Mezger said in an interview Jan. 29.

Fritz’s 22-year-old brother, Daniel, will graduate from West Point next year, she said.

Pfc. Shawn P. Falter, 25, of Homer, N.Y., followed three of his older brothers into the Army — all still on active duty but none currently in Iraq.

One of 13 brothers and sisters, Falter was remembered in his hometown as hardworking but easygoing.

“He knew how to lighten a moment just when you needed it,” Homer High School Principal Fred Farah said.

A military casualty assistance officer, Staff Sgt. Raymond Swift, answered the phone at Falter’s house Jan. 26 and said it was the first he had heard of the new details surrounding the deaths. He said the family would not be making any comments.

On Jan. 30, Swift released a statement in which Falter’s family thanked their community south of Syracuse for their love and support.

“We are extremely proud of Shawn’s service and sacrifice to our country,” his family said.

Spc. Johnathan Bryan Chism, 22, of Prairieville, La., was a Boy Scout who enjoyed skydiving and rock climbing and became an artillery specialist in the Army.

He “liked anybody and everybody,” his mother, Elizabeth Chism, said Jan. 28. He had been due to come home next month for two weeks of rest and recuperation, she said.

“Right now, we have not had any official word form the military” Chism’s sister, Julie Andexler, said when asked in a brief telephone interview about the Jan. 26 report. She said the family would have no other comment until they have been briefed by the military.

Freeman was assigned to the 412th Civil Affairs Battalion, based in Whitehall, Ohio. The other soldiers were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.