Soldier from northeast Ohio killed by roadside blast

ORWELL (AP) -- A soldier from northeast Ohio was killed in Iraq by a roadside blast near the Abu Ghraib prison, according to his family.
Thomas Schamberg learned Friday that his son, Army Sgt. Kurt Schamberg, had been killed the day before in Baghdad.
"He said, 'What we're doing is right, and the job we're doing is right,'" Thomas Schamberg said of his son. "And you have to support him on that."
He said his son wasn't afraid to put his life on the line.
"He would do what he had to do to protect his soldiers. He'd rather it be him than one of his men," Thomas Schamberg said in a telephone interview.
Kurt Schamberg, 26, was on his second tour of duty in Iraq, with the 10th Mountain Division based at Fort Drum, N.Y. He had returned to Iraq Jan. 25, and on April 12 was awarded the Purple Heart for injuries sustained when he was patrolling around Abu Ghraib.
A 1997 graduate of Grand Valley High School in Orwell, Schamberg joined the Army after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Thomas Schamberg was the mayor of Orwell, about 40 miles east of Cleveland, and now lives in Melrose, Mass. Kurt Schamberg's mother, Pamela Lindsay, lives in Gillette, Wyo.
Katie Schamberg remembered her nephew as fun-loving.
"He was talented, he was comedic, he was just everything," she said. "He loved life, and he was proud of what he was doing ... and you have to feel that that's a good thing."