11/06/2006

Associated Press

An Army reservist killed in Afghanistan was remembered Sunday as a strong-willed boy who grew into a man that sought to make a difference.

Staff Sgt. Robert Paul, 43, died Sept. 8 when a car bomber struck near the Humvee that was carrying him. Paul, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya, had come to Oregon from Chicago and worked in land-use planning, starting with the city of The Dalles and then with Wasco County.

At a memorial service at The Dalles Wahtonka High School, Gov. Ted Kulongoski, U.S. Rep. Greg Walden and Major Gen. Raymond Rees spoke about the man who served his country. His mother, meanwhile, told the audience about a boy who watched movies with a box of hats.

"If it was a cowboy movie, he put on a cowboy hat; if it was an Indian movie, he put on an Indian headdress," said Esther Paul of Chicago.

"He was an unusual kid," she said to laughter.

Paul said her son never stopped charting his own path, whether it was taking German when French and Spanish were the only languages offered, or announcing over dinner that he had joined the Peace Corps. "His first year there, he learned Swahili, and that's a very hard language, I understand," she said. "Then when that year was up, he called and said he was staying another year."

She also spoke of her son's decision to leave the Chicago area for another windy city — The Dalles. "He called one day and said, 'Mom, I'm in the greatest city in the world. This is God's country.' He said he was never ever going to leave Oregon."

But he did leave for the Middle East.

"I asked, 'Is there anybody I can call to get you out,'" his mother recalled tearfully. "He said, 'You don't understand; I want to go.' "So he went and he's not coming back. His family misses Bobby very much, but we realize Bobby had a job to do; Bobby was where he wanted to be and doing what he wanted to do."

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Information from: The Dalles Chronicle, http://www.thedalleschronicle.com