Matthew C. Bowe dies of injuries from I.E.D.

CORAOPOLIS - A soldier from Western Pennsylvania who was serving as a medic was killed in a firefight in Iraq, his family said.

Pvt. Matthew Bowe, 19, a 2005 graduate of Moon Area High School, was killed Monday along with another American serviceman about 30 miles north of Iraq, his mother, Lori Lynn Bowe told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for Wednesday's editions. The family has an unlisted telephone and could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

"He wanted to go in the service, he wanted to be a doctor," Bowe told the newspaper. "He talked about it for years."

The U.S. Defense Department did not immediately release information on Bowe's death, but his family learned about it Monday, and officials at his former school learned of it Tuesday, said Moon Area High School Principal Michael Hauser.

"One of the reasons he joined the military was because he wanted to go to medical school and saw this as a way to pay for it," Hauser told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Bowe said her son, the oldest of her five children, wanted to be a pediatrician and became interested in children because she runs a child day care center.

Pvt. Bowe enlisted in July 2005 and went to Iraq as a medic in October, after training at Fort Benning, Ga., and other posts in Texas and New York, his mother said. Bowe knew his assignment was dangerous, but she said her son tried to shield her from those details.

"He tried to smooth it over because I was always watching CNN and I'd always question him. And, of course, he's talking to Mom, so he'd candy-coat it and try to say everything was fine and he was good," Bowe said. "But he'd tell his dad things."

Bowe last spoke to his mother on Dec. 27, when he called to wish her happy birthday. When his unit moved, he was limited to e-mails and last sent one to his mother for Valentine's Day, she said.

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