Lancaster Online Tribute for a Great Hero

Conestoga Valley graduate dies in Afghanistan while serving his country

The phone rang Wednesday night in the Styer house, as it did almost every night.
Brandon Styer was making one of his regular calls home from half a world away.
The 19-year-old U.S. Army combat engineer was checking in from Afghanistan, where it already was Thursday morning.
"We're loading up," Styer told his dad, Terry. "We're rolling out on a 15-day mission. I'll see you.
"I love you, Pops."
Terry Styer said, "Me too, pal."
A few hours later, Brandon Styer was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan.
Thursday, two soldiers in dress uniforms showed up at Terry Styer's Pennwick Road house. His wife, Diane, called Styer as he was leaving work and told him to hurry home.
"When I came in, I saw them standing in the living room," Styer said. "And I knew that was it."
Friday night, the Styer family drove to Dover, Del., to greet Brandon's body as it returned to the United States. Next week, they will bring him back to Lancaster County for a funeral and burial.
Then the community will say goodbye to the handsome kid with the big smile, the uncle who liked to pretend he was the Incredible Hulk, the role model who played football in his camouflage uniform with elementary school kids, the friend, the brother, the twin, the son.

Brandon and his twin sister, Alyssa, were the youngest of siblings that include another older sister, Angie Bauza of Lancaster. He lived with his dad and stepmom, Diane, while going to Conestoga Valley High School.
At CV, Styer played right field for the baseball team and wrestled at 152 pounds.
He injected spirit into everything he did.
Wrestling coach Trent Turner said, "Brandon will be remembered for the lightheartedness he brought to the wrestling team. Training for and competing in wrestling can be grueling at times, but Brandon often did it with a smile."
Styer's dad said his son was enthusiastic about a lot of things: his beloved bright-blue Mazda RX-8, girls, his friends.
He brought the same energy to his service in the Army, enlisting during his senior year.
"He came home one day and said, 'I'm going in the Army,' " Terry Styer recalled. "That's all he wanted. That's all he thought of. That was his life.
"He loved it."
Brandon Styer loved the camaraderie. He loved the excitement.
He did his basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and then went to Fort Carson in Colorado for additional training.
In March, he was shipped to Iraq, where he spent seven weeks before being transferred to Afghanistan.
In both countries, he worked from an armored vehicle called a Buffalo, clearing roads of improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs.
Styer was frustrated by the way war was waged in Afghanistan. Militants often would fire on U.S. troops and then use women or children as shields to prevent troops from firing back at them, he told his dad.
"He said, 'I will not kill a child,' " his dad recalled.
Styer became good at his job, earning a commendation medal for a lecture he gave to Army officers on handheld land-mine detectors.
It was dangerous work, but Styer never seemed nervous or anxious about it, his family said.
"I told him every time he would call, I would say, 'Hey dude, keep your head down,' " his dad recalled. "He said, 'You worry too much.' He said, 'It's all good. We're protected.' "
Said Bowling, "He was not scared. He never talked negative about the experience. He loved it."
Last month, Styer came home for a two-week leave.
"ill be home in 1 piece," Styer promised on a Facebook page he had started called "Brandon Styer is going to Iraq."
He ended his post with the Army battle cry: "hooah."
•••
During his leave, Styer and his dad went to Florida for a week.
He also visited a class at Lancaster Christian School that he got to know through his stepmom, who is a teacher's assistant there.
Styer first visited the class last year, when it was in the third grade. Tonya Gerety's son, Reilly, is in the class.
"He came in his uniform before he left for Iraq," Gerety said. "He was just so sweet. He answered all the kids' questions. He took time afterward to go out to recess and play football with them."
Styer made a huge impression on her son, said Gerety, of Lancaster Township.
"That was the first person that Reilly knew at his young age who was actually fighting over in Afghanistan," she said. "It made it real, that real people are fighting for our country. He was really a hero for him."
The children wrote Styer letters, and he came back to see them again last month. Some of the kids had their photos taken with him.
While Styer was home, he also visited with friends and family, including his three nieces and a nephew, who range in age from 3 to 11 and called him "Uncle BZ."
Styer often pretended to be the Incredible Hulk.
"They jumped on him, they wrestled with him, all four of them," Bowling recalled.
The family went out to dinner and then stayed overnight together.
"The kids put on a play for him. My niece made it up," Bowling said. "It was about him being a soldier, and coming home."
•••
Just before he returned overseas, Styer got antsy. He was bored. He wanted to be back with his fellow soldiers.
He wanted to be doing his duty.
"He said, 'Hey, somebody's got to do it,' " his dad recalled. "He liked doing it. He loved his country."
A friend set up a Facebook account called "R.I.P. Brandon Styer" on Thursday night to let his friends post messages and photos remembering him on the social networking site.
One post from a friend repeats the Army battle cry, but in a bittersweet way.
"hooah, big guy," it says. "you will be missed terribly."
cstauffer@lnpnews.com