Jett said she's known since Justin was a boy that he wanted to be a soldier. You can see it in his senior picture from Krum High School.

A week after graduation, he was gone to join the Army. Soon after that he was married, with a stepson and two young children of his own.

The Monschkes lived near Fort Bragg, North Carolina. His family said he never talked about life as an elite special forces soldier at war in Afghanistan and then in Iraq.

The last time Justin Monschke came home to Texas, it was to bury a fellow Green Beret.

Now it's his family, planning a funeral and rebuilding a life from boxes of photos.

The parrot he got as a boy still squawks something that sounds like his name. "Justin, be good," his mother interprets.

The final e-mail from Sgt. 1st Class Monschke contained a clue to his courage in a message to his grandfather:

"Tell Papa I got put in for a Bronze Star with Valor, and it was upgraded to a Silver Star," the message said.

Funeral arrangements are still in the works for Sgt. 1st Class Justin Monschke, who died Sunday in an explosion in southern Baghdad.

Meanwhile, his family and friends in the Krum area remembered him as a hero who died doing a job he loved.

His mother, Patty Jett, said he was well trained and took every opportunity he could to better himself.

“Justin died a hero. He was going after terrorism when he got killed,” she said. “He gave it his all.”

He wanted to go into the Army ever since he was a boy and he played with little Army men, Jett said.

She said he didn’t e-mail often from Iraq because he had few opportunities to do so, but last week, he did e-mail her to say he had been recommended to receive a bronze star for valor and a silver star.

“He put everything into what he did,” she said. “Whatever he did, he went over and beyond.”

Funeral arrangements are pending with Bill DeBerry Funeral Directors. A horse-drawn carriage will carry his body, Jett said.

Monschke, 28, a Special Forces Green Beret sergeant, encountered an improvised explosive device on Sunday.

Monschke was serving in the southern Baghdad region of Arab Jabour, Iraq, as a Special Forces Operational Detachment — Alpha Team weapons sergeant assigned to Company B, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, N.C.

He earned the legendary Green Beret in 2002.

Monschke had extensive advanced military tactics, paratroop, emergency medical, Ranger, Special Forces and non-commissioned officer training. He earned two Army Commendation medals, three Army Achievement medals, three Good Conduct medals, a National Defense Service medal, an Armed Forces Expeditionary medal, campaign medals in Afghanistan and Iraq, a Global War on Terrorism medal, and numerous badges and ribbons.

He served as an instructor at the U.S. Army Ranger Training Battalion in Georgia and as a squad leader and observer/controller at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La.

He deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom in July as a member of the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force. This was his second deployment in the military and his first in Iraq.

He is survived by his wife, Melissa, his daughter and son, Ashley and Ryan, and stepson, Dylan, of Lillington, N.C.; his father, Larry Monschke of Fort Worth; his mother, Patty Jett of Denton; and a brother, Jarrett Monschke, a Denton firefighter and paramedic.