“This is so sad,” said Helen Kennard, a family relative who serves as the principal of West Oktibbeha High School, and who noted other family members would be arriving Wednesday for the funeral. Both sets of Kennard's grandparents live in Starkville, and his parents live in San Antonio, where his father will be retiring from the Army in about a month.

“We've spent nearly all our lives traveling the world,” said Kennard's mother, Darlene Kennard, speaking on the phone Monday afternoon from the family's home in San Antonio.

“And Courtland loved the military,” she added. “I always had phone calls saying what a great job he was doing.”

“He was very happy,” Darlene Kennard expressed.

Courtland Kennard joined the military in January 2003, and was deployed to Iraq in early July 2006, said Delena Kanouse, a civilian public affairs official with Fort Hood.

The blast killed McCoy immediately, said Darlene Kennard, and her son died soon after at a military hospital in Baghdad. The other two passengers in the Humvee, who are believed to be civilians, were mostly uninjured.

“He was the driver leading a convoy of four Humvees, and the IED exploded on the side of his vehicle,” she explained.

“He said it was always very dangerous (in Iraq),” she added.

And life in Iraq had become a daily battle against close calls.

“Last week, before he died, he told us a bomb exploded just in front of him, but he wasn't hurt,” Darlene Kennard said.

Douglas Kennard said his son was “a great young man, very energetic and fun-loving.

“And now, I am going to miss him a lot,” the elder Kennard told The Associated Press Tuesday.

A great-uncle, Bobby Macon of Starkville, said Kennard visited relatives in Mississippi in July, shortly before being sent to Iraq.

“He was just a little quiet kid, smiled a lot. I can't recall him ever getting in any trouble,” Macon said Monday.

So far, 35 U.S. service members have died in Iraq this month, while October marked one of the deadliest months for U.S. fatalities, claiming 105 soldiers.

Courtland Kennard was born in Starkville in March 1984, but shortly after, his father joined the Army and the family was reassigned.

Courtland Kennard did not attend Starkville public schools, as was previously reported, said Darlene Kennard.

“Courtland went to elementary school in North Carolina,” she added.

He graduated from an American high school in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 2002, while his father was stationed there. He was a young teenager when he decided he'd eventually join the military, Macon said.

“When he got about 14, he kind of just wanted to follow his daddy's footsteps,” Macon said.

Kennard's survivors include his parents; brother Jamar Kennard, 19, who is a student at St. Philips College in San Antonio; and grandparents Emma Kennard and C.D. and Luevenia Simmons, all of Starkville.

McCoy, the Michigan soldier killed with Kennard, joined the Army straight out of school and was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. His mother, Carol Johnson, of Howell, Mich., told the Daily Press and Argus newspaper in Livingston, Mich., she was proud of her son's choice in joining the service.

Johnson said the last time she saw McCoy was for Mother's Day, just weeks before he was deployed. She said her son enjoyed snowboarding and had a dry sense of humor. On McCoy's first tour of duty, he helped train Iraqi police, his mother said.

“He felt they were doing a lot of good there,” she said.

McCoy's survivors include his wife, Lori, and two sons, Logan, 6, and Tyler, 3, who all live in Texas. McCoy will be buried at a national cemetery in Texas, Johnson said.

The Department of Defense has confirmed the deaths of 2,842 service-members killed in the Iraq War, with more than 46,000 soldiers injured.