Kentucky.com -- LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A U.S. Army Reserve officer from central Kentucky died Friday in a roadside bomb explosion, his widow said Sunday.

U.S. Army Maj. Michael Lewis Mundell, 47, of Brandenburg, Ky., was killed Friday in Fallujah, Iraq. He was serving with the 108th Division, a training unit of 4,500 soldiers that is headquartered in North Carolina. Military officials had not announced the death Sunday evening through the Department of Defense.

Audrey Mundell, 41, said casualty officers arrived at their home in Brandenburg about 5 p.m. Friday. "My first thought was, 'Are you sure? Are you sure it's him?'" she told The Associated Press.

Her husband, who went to high school in Pennsylvania, had served 11 years in the Army before rejoining in November 2005. He left for training at military outposts nearly a year ago. He left for Iraq on Father's Day last year, Audrey Mundell said.

Mundell had been working with other soldiers looking for improvised explosive devices, known as IEDs. She said his main duty was helping train the new Iraqi army.

"The casualty officer told me that it doesn't matter how good a soldier they are. It's a matter of being at the wrong place at the wrong time," she said.

Just a day after Thanksgiving, he had been wounded when a sniper's bullet pierced his portable radio and Kevlar vest. When wounded, he looked in the direction of the shot and saw a sniper in a minaret of a mosque, his widow said. They were unable to find the shooter.

He was supposed to be on "light duty" but refused less dangerous assignments, Audrey Mundell said.

She said her husband of 21 years had trained his whole life for a military career. "But once our kids came along, his perspective changed a little," she said.

The couple met while she was a college student at Elizabethtown Community College and he was taking an advanced officer course at Fort Knox.

In addition to his wife, he leaves four children, Erica, 17; Ryan, 14; Zachary, 13; and Dale, 11.

Mundell's body was to return Sunday evening to the United States. Burial will be in Kentucky.