Scott Dykman remembered

BUTTE (AP) — U.S. Army Sgt. Scott D. Dykman enjoyed boxing and competing in rodeos and dreamed of becoming a fishing and hunting guide with his brother, his mother said Tuesday.

Dykman, 27, was killed Dec. 20 during a patrol in Baghdad.

A roadside bomb exploded near his Humvee, and Dykman, team leader for his squad, left the vehicle to secure the area. A second explosion knocked over some power lines, and Dykman was electrocuted, family members said. Four others in his squad were hospitalized in Baghdad.

Dykman, a 1998 Harrison High School graduate, was in his third tour in Iraq.

Before joining the Army, he volunteered with the Harrison fire department and worked as a logger.

“He was just a great kid,” said his mother, Donna Koontz of Helena. “He was into everything.”

Dykman’s wife, Chantelle, said she still hasn’t accepted that fact that her husband won’t be calling her again from Iraq.

“I want it to be done so I can move on, but I don’t want it to be real,” she said.

Harrison Fire Chief Doug Dykman said he last spoke with his son five days before his death.

“He said he was proud to be there and serve his country, and I told him I was proud of him,” Doug Dykman said.

It was the first time the two had spoken in four months, and Doug Dykman said he was worried about his son’s safety.

“I didn’t have a good feeling about this time at all. The whole thing,” he said. “When I didn’t hear from him for so long, I knew it was not a good thing.”

Dykman and his brother Michael Dykman, who works as an Army recruiter in Bozeman, joined the Army Airborne together in 2003.

Scott served with the 82nd Airborne Division during tours in 2004 and 2005 and transferred in September to Fort Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, as part of the 25th Infantry Division.

The brothers hoped to one day become fishing and hunting guides in Alaska, Koontz said.

“It was always their dream,” she said.

She added that she prayed for her sons and often spoke with Scott about the dangers of war.

“He said people have to remember that if we don’t want 9/11 happening in every city in America, we’ve got to go over there and change how they feel about Americans,” Koontz said. “He said, ‘We’ve got to stop the hate over there before it comes over here.’ That’s why he was there, and he truly believed that.”

Dykman also is survived by a 5-year-old son, William, and a 3-year-old daughter, Rachel.

From the Independent Record

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