Family: Soldier killed by Afghan suicide bomber - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Family: Soldier killed by Afghan suicide bomber

BILLINGS, Mont. — A soldier from Billings was killed by a suicide bomber last weekend while on patrol in Afghanistan, his family said.

The family of Sgt. Jeremiah Wittman, 26, said he died Saturday. The Pentagon had not announced his death as of Tuesday afternoon.

“He told me he was going out on a mission for three days and he would be safe,” his mother, Cynthia Church, told The Billings Gazette on Monday. “He said: ‘Don’t worry, Mom. They don’t scare me. I’m a super soldier.’ ”

Wittman, a member of the 12th Infantry Regiment, was serving his second deployment in the Middle East.

His wife, Karen, and their 3-year-old daughter, Miah, were living in South Carolina with her family while Wittman was deployed. Another daughter, 7-year-old Arieana, lives with her grandmother in Wyoming.

“He only had two months left over there and was so looking forward to coming home and being with his girls,” said Wittman’s aunt, Kari Dvorak.

Robert Wittman said he has a picture of his son with five of his Army buddies, and four of them are now dead.

“He kept calling me every week and saying, ‘I’m still alive. I’m still alive,’ ” Robert Wittman said. “He just kept losing friends.”

Wittman attended elementary and middle school in Billings before moving with his mother to Powell, Wyo., for a time. He graduated from Trapper Creek High in Darby and enlisted in the Army in 2004.

Wittman is also survived by sisters Charity and Jenell.

“He had a huge heart,” Jenell Wittman said. “No matter what, he could always make you laugh or smile.”