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Bruno G. Desolenni always was in a good mood.
"His whole body was a smile," his fiancee, Farrah Bates, said.
That's why when he described to The Oregonian the enormous dangers he faced in Afghanistan, he quickly added, "I don't want to sound like a negative person. I support everything we're doing over here. I really do. Things are going good, but we really have some challenges."
Desolenni died less than a month after telling the newspaper what he was encountering in a remote outpost in Afghanistan's dangerous Helmand Province. The Oregon Army National Guardsman from Crescent City, Calif., was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan Sept. 20, 2008 at the age of 32.
De Solenni had joined the ROTC program while attending Southern Oregon University in Ashland, and was on his third tour in the Middle East. He was due to return home in December.
His twin brother Ricardo had a feeling that he might not return and wanted him to stay in Crescent City. But Bruno would not hear of it, friends said.
Family and friends buried him in a coffin handmade from the logs he had cut.
