Morning Call -- For a few moments Wednesday, Jane Drumheller turned away from her grief, speaking strongly and steadily as she remembered her daughter, Army Sgt. Ashly Lynn Moyer, an Emmaus High School graduate killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.

"She definitely was a hero," said Drumheller, of Milford, Pike County. The note of pride in her voice was unmistakable as she unfolded the all-too-familiar chronology of bad news from the war zone: the late-night visit from an Army officer, the crushing news, the sudden rush of memorial preparations and visits from friends.

It happened this way, according to the account the Army provided to Moyer's parents: Moyer, 21, assigned to the 630th Military Police Company, 793rd Military Police Battalion, was on routine patrol Saturday, steering the armored patrol vehicle she called "my baby."

She was driving the second vehicle in a convoy of four. As the lead vehicle drove over a buried bomb, insurgents detonated it by remote control. The occupants of the lead vehicle survived, but the explosion detonated the fuel tank on Moyer's vehicle, creating a fireball that killed her and the two sergeants with her. They were Brandon A. Parr, 25, of West Valley, Utah, and Michael C. Peek, 23, of Chesapeake, Va., the Department of Defense said Wednesday.

Among the soldiers who responded to the bombing was Moyer's boyfriend, Jake Wells, a member of her unit who tried to rescue her but was turned back by the flames and rounds of ammunition exploding in the heat.

"That's what's most heart-wrenching to me," said Moyer's father, Michael Moyer of Lower Macungie, a former Marine choking up briefly as he pictured the scene. "Can you imagine that? The girl you love is in there, and not being able to do anything."

Moyer said it was comforting to learn that a helicopter destroyed the car carrying the insurgents suspected in the bombing. But his grief was compounded when he learned that Sgt. Peek was supposed to be married in two weeks.

Moyer will be buried March 16 at Arlington National Cemetery. She was the fourth person from the region to die in combat in Iraq this year and the 21st to die thus far in the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. More than 3,100 soldiers have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003.

Drumheller described her daughter as a tomboy with a girlish side, as fond of dolls as she was of softball. "She would always rise to the occasion. She would mold in," Drumheller said. "She was serious when she needed to get a job done, but when it was time to have fun, she was a chuckle."

Inspired by her family's military pedigree – her Marine grandfather served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam – Moyer joined the Army Reserve through the delayed enlistment program while still attending Emmaus High. After graduating in 2003, she attended the Army Military Police School in Missouri, graduating in March 2004.

Her first assignment was Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, guarding enemy combatants held since the war in Afghanistan began. "They were some of the real bad boys," her father said. "Taliban."

Moyer spent about a year at that task before returning home and getting an apartment in Emmaus. Restless and eager to see more of the world, she decided to return to active duty. She was stationed in Bamberg, Germany, about five months before shipping to Iraq.

In Baghdad, Moyer took an instant liking to her job as a driver. Her father would send her rearview mirror dice and other gag gifts to dress up the interior of the armored vehicle, a lumbering, plated truck with machine guns mounted on the rear. On the exterior, she mounted a toy Incredible Hulk head, which other soldiers would rub for luck before missions.

Last fall, while on a 10-day leave, Moyer visited her brother Kyle's school, Shohola Elementary, in Milford. Kathy Maida, the physical education teacher and student council adviser, said Moyer was nervous about the appearance before the fifth- and sixth-graders but carried it off as though she'd been doing it for years, speaking plainly and engagingly about Army life and her hopes for the future.

Afterward, Maida struck up an e-mail correspondence with Moyer. Maida said Moyer's messages reflected the fears and frustrations of Army life and indicated she was ready to come home for good.

Moyer's father, though, said his daughter believed strongly in the American cause and had recently extended her enlistment for a year. "She really liked what she was doing," he said. "The MPs over there are a very close family."

For Ashly, that might have become literally true in the coming months.

"I just talked to her last week," her father said. "They were coming home in June and planning two weeks in Pennsylvania and two weeks in Texas, where Jake is from. They were coming here because he was going to ask me for her hand in marriage."