CONCORD, N.H. -- A soldier whose qualms about violence led him to become a medic has been killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb.
Army National Guard Spc. David Stelmat and two other soldiers died Saturday when a bomb exploded near their Humvee, military officials said.
A 1998 graduate of the Profile School in Bethlehem, Stelmat was an outdoorsman who lived for several years in a shack in Franconia without running water or electricity, said his mother, Maryanne Rennell of Littleton.
She said he served as an Army infantryman in Afghanistan in 2003-2004 but got a general discharge and returned home because of clashes with superiors over the violence inherent in combat.
"He had a very, very tough time launching bombs when he knew other human beings were on the other end," she said.
Back home, he trained as an emergency medical technician and combat medic, joined the National Guard and deployed to Iraq last year. He was due back in June.
"All he wanted to do was help people," said his father, also named David Stelmat, of Centerville, Ohio.
Stelmat was a medic with the Guard's 237th Military Police Company.
A skiier and hiker, Stelmat had worked at Cannon Mountain ski area in Franconia, making snow in the winter and doing trail work in the summer, his mother said. During that period, he lived in the 10-foot-square cabin.
"He loved living in that cabin," his mother said. "He didn't mind melting the snow for his water."
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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