Soldier dies in Iraq when roadside bomb explodes

Brandon Meyer was a wide-smiling pastor’s son with a sarcastic sense of humor and a fondness for practical jokes.

And when he first spoke by telephone with the woman who later became his wife -- a friend had set them up -- Meyer listed three of his favorite things: horses, surfing and the color baby blue. On their first date, she gave him a stuffed horse wearing a baby blue outfit with a shirt reading, “Surf’s up.”

“He just sat there with a stupid, goofy grin on his face and said, ‘That’s the first time someone’s actually listened to what I like,’ ” said Caitlin Meyer, 20, of Orange.

The next day, he took Caitlin to the beach to teach her to surf. She didn’t wear a wetsuit even though it was February.

“She’s nuts,” said one of his friends approvingly. “You have to go out with her.”

It soon budded into a romance, with him driving her to the beach for an early morning sunrise, regaling her with roses and chocolate. She taught him line dancing and gushed to friends about the slightly sheltered all-American boy she was falling in love with, taken with his goofball humor and strong convictions.

His family called him a faithful Lutheran and a patriot who believed in the war in Iraq.

He and Caitlin decided to join the military together and were married in a civil ceremony in November 2006, before they went off to basic training -- to ensure that the Army would station them together. Though she was later discharged because of her asthma, they had hoped to be sent to Italy after he got back from Iraq.

Meyer grew up in St. Louis and attended high school in the Texas Panhandle town of Canyon, where his family still lives. He ventured west to study biology at Concordia University in Irvine. But it was the ocean that beckoned him, transforming Meyer, a varsity baseball player, into a shaggy-haired surfer.

A towering 6 feet 4, with size 13 shoes, he was nearly as tall as his father, Terry, a Lutheran pastor. They shared a special bond and a sense of humor, Brandon’s mother, Genia, said.

He and his father used to poke fun at their height by pretending to knock their heads on the ceiling when they walked down the stairs, hitting it with a resounding thump for effect. Meyer would scare friends and family with masks, imitate voices from TV and movies, and plant fake plastic bugs to elicit screams. He also loved teasing his younger sister Desiree, now 18.

For Thanksgiving last year, his family visited him at Ft. Carson, Colo., before he shipped out for the Middle East.

“That was my moment knowing he was not that little boy anymore and he was a man,” his mother said. “He knew in life what he wanted to do and that was to go be in arms with his brothers.”

After he left, “I just cried like it was the last time I was going to see him, not knowing it actually was,” she said.

While in Iraq, he spared his family most of the details. But in one of his last phone calls to Caitlin he described how a bullet went flying by his head as he looked out a window and how a building had exploded five minutes before he was supposed to raid it.

“I just had a couple close calls. I’m just alive by luck,” he told her.

She started crying.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m coming home.”

Brandon died Jan. 28, six days before his 21st birthday. When Caitlin heard the news, she said, she “wanted to know how, if he died instantly -- because I didn’t want to think of him being in any pain and I didn’t want him to die alone.”

He didn’t. Meyer was one of five soldiers killed in Mosul when their convoy was hit by a roadside explosive. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division at Ft. Carson. The Army posthumously promoted Meyer, a private first class, to specialist.

The summer before he left for Iraq, Meyer had Caitlin kiss a piece of paper and had the image tattooed over his heart. He nearly fainted when her name was tattooed across his back. On his left arm, he had a Chinese character for warrior.

“The only parts of him left,” his wife said, “are the parts that have those tattoos on them and the side of him with his wedding ring.”

Meyer would feel proud knowing he died serving his country, his wife said. “He wanted people to know what’s going on over there is real,” she said.

A week before his death, she asked Meyer what he wanted for his funeral in case something happened. He wanted to be buried in his uniform by the beach, he said, with full military honors and “Amazing Grace” playing in the background.

Services will be held Monday, at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Orange, the church where he and Caitlin had their formal wedding ceremony a few months ago.

Burial will be at Pacific View Memorial Park, just a few miles from his favorite surfing spot in Newport Beach.

Caitlin will bury him with the stuffed horse she gave him on their first date.

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tony.barboza@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

War casualties

Total U.S. deaths*:

* In and around Iraq**: 3,954

* In and around Afghanistan***: 415

* Other locations***: 63

*Includes military and Department of Defense-employed civilian personnel killed in action and in nonhostile circumstances

**As of Friday

***As of Tuesday

Source: Department of Defense