Michael L. Mundell dies of injuries from I.E.D.

Months before his death, Army Maj. Michael Lewis Mundell said that those around him, the insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq, "will cut your throat just as soon as look at you."

He spoke to a reporter from The Christian Science Monitor, describing his job -- how he trained, and by extension commanded, a group of local Sunni soldiers.

Maj. Mundell, 47, raised in Canonsburg and a 1977 graduate of Canon-McMillan High School, died Friday in Iraq, his family said.

The Department of Defense had yet to release information about his death yesterday, but Maj. Mundell's sister, Deanna Sofranko, said he was killed by a roadside bomb near Fallujah. He'd lived for more than 20 years in Kentucky with his wife and four children, visiting the Pittsburgh area to spend time with Ms. Sofranko, of Moon, or join his high school buddies for annual golf outings.

Maj. Mundell told his sister and his friends, following the Christian Science Monitor interview, about his experience. The reporter, he felt, prodded him to criticize U.S. involvement overseas. But Maj. Mundell wanted only to share the facts, not so much because of his personal views about Iraq, but because of his personal views about all military endeavors.

He'd dedicated his life to the necessity of war. He'd studied history at Washington & Jefferson College; he'd taught ROTC classes at Wright State, in Dayton, Ohio; as a hobby, he painted miniature soldiers; and, above all, as an apolitical student of battle, he understood war's role in history.

He learned in January 2006 that he'd been called overseas.

"He truly viewed it as his job," said Joe Grosso, a longtime friend and now a teacher at Canon-McMillan. "He didn't view it as some journey to bring democracy to the world."

Still, he sensed the dangers, which he recorded in detail. Letters to family members doubled as page-turning accounts, so vivid that they became difficult to read. "It was almost like a diary of what was happening there," Ms. Sofranko said.

He told The Christian Science Monitor that the surrounding insurgents "hate us all, Americans and the Iraqi army alike."

Weeks after that November interview, on Dec. 12, he was struck by a sniper's bullet, fired from the minaret, or tower, of a mosque. The bullet knocked him to the ground and destroyed his radio attachment. The cracked ribs that resulted couldn't be treated at a hospital until the following morning; the trip to Fallujah would have been too dangerous at night.

"Will this mean you get to come home?" his sister remembers asking him after the injury.

"No," he said, speaking by satellite phone. "Not unless you lose a limb or die."

In letters he wrote thereafter, he expressed fear. He wrote to his sister that his hair often stood on end. Letters sent to Mr. Grosso suddenly included more description of fire and mortar attacks, even around their base.

Maj. Mundell had been in Iraq since June 2006, with a tour of duty set to end a year later. In active duty after college, he'd been stationed in Germany (where he commanded a tank battalion) and Fort Knox (where he met his wife). In the mid-90s, when he awaited a promotion from captain to major, he instead learned of a forced retirement -- part of Army cutbacks.

So he moved into the private sector, working as a tactician for a company contracted by the Department of Defense. Maj. Mundell created simulations -- often simulations of the "black" army, or opposition -- and carried them out at camps across the country, to give U.S. soldiers a better understanding of what to expect.

"He loved it," Mr. Grosso said. "A guy of Mike's intellect couldn't have had a better job."

Maj. Mundell joined the inactive Army Reserve in November 2005.

He had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the Civil War. He researched the circumstances behind the deaths of Civil War soldiers. He read constantly. Months earlier, he'd asked his sister to send him a book, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."

Because, he said, "history repeats itself."

Maj. Mundell is survived by his family in Brandenburg, Ky.: his wife, Audrey, and children Erica, 17, Ryan, 14, Zachary, 13, and Dale, 11. Funeral arrangements were incomplete. His friends in the area hope to plan a commemoration -- either a memorial service or a scholarship in his honor.

From the Gazette