Army Staff Sgt. Michael Zyla had already shed his blood in Iraq. During his first tour, he was sidelined for several weeks with a gunshot wound to the foot.
"They came under enemy fire, and they returned fire," said Doree Hightower, his mother-in-law. "It was a lively piece of action." Zyla , 32, of Elgin, Ore., was one of four soldiers from his unit killed Dec. 13, 2005, by a roadside bomb northwest of Baghdad. He was assigned to Fort Riley. They were the final four casualties of the Iraq war from the post to date.
He was born in Grand Junction, Colo., and lived in Alaska and Minnesota. Zyla and his wife Teresa then moved to Elgin, where he worked at a Boise Cascade sawmill from 1998 to 2002.
Zyla was a Marine veteran who served with the Oregon National Guard before joining the regular Army, said Bob Droke, a retired master sergeant with the Guard. "He died doing what he believed in," he said.
At the funeral service in December, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski described Zyla as "a soldier's soldier."
