As a timber faller, Bruno de Solenni labored through the spring and summer in groves of giant redwood, cedar and fir. As a soldier, he died in Afghanistan, and the tree trunks he sawed and milled became his coffin.
The Army National Guard captain was killed Sept. 20 when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle, on which he was a gunner, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, southwest of Kabul.
De Solenni, 32, was assigned to the Joint Forces Headquarters, Element Training Team in Salem, Ore. In Afghanistan, he was helping to train the national army.
Capt. Dominic Oto, who was driving the vehicle when it struck the 500-pound explosive, remembered De Solenni as a natural leader with a generous spirit -- "one of the finest battle captains I've ever seen."
Oto met De Solenni in January but said he had heard of him long before. "Everybody always had a Bruno story," he said. "It was like hanging out with the Fonz. He was the coolest guy you ever met."
De Solenni's father, Mario, learned that his son won over Afghan troops when, upon meeting them, he jumped onto a table, raised a fist and yelled, "I am Capt. Bruno! I am here to lead you into battle!"
De Solenni's mother, California Martin, said, "He was so moved by how terribly the Taliban treated people. He felt a great deal that [the Afghan people] needed someone to help them stand up."
A native of Crescent City, Calif., a coastal town of about 7,500 residents just south of the Oregon border, De Solenni had served in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in 2003 and in Iraq in 2005.
"He started getting deployed a lot when he didn't have to," said Todd Nickel, who lowered the casket that he and De Solenni's family built into the grave they dug at the St. Joseph's Catholic Church cemetery in Crescent City. "He actually thought they were making a difference."
Nickel hired De Solenni fresh out of high school at his logging company, Northwest Chopping, but not without hesitation.
"I didn't think he was really for it," said Nickel, 47. "It just struck me odd he'd work so hard when he didn't have to."
De Solenni persisted and eventually became Nickel's business partner.
When it wasn't logging season, the two fished for crab on Nickel's boat. De Solenni eventually bought his own 36-foot vessel, the Sea Belle.
About twice a year, De Solenni and his identical twin, Ricardo, hunted for deer.
