Army Staff Sgt. Daniel G. Gresham, 23, a Lincoln native and munitions expert, was disarming a roadside bomb when another nearby bomb went off, killing him, according to his family.

Gresham, who had been in Iraq only a week but was a veteran of the conflict in Afghanistan, was assigned to the 797th Ordnance Company, 79th Ordnance Battalion, 52nd Ordnance based in Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

The Defense Department on Friday did not immediately provide other details of Gresham's death, including where in Iraq he died.

Gresham's mother and two sisters live in Chicago.

"He's a good boy, very smart. He fight for America. He gave his life for freedom," said his mother, Esther Choe Yu Chin Gresham.

Daniel's father, Robert Gresham, himself a military veteran, sobbed as he summed up his son's life.

"He was just a wonderful kid. I tried to talk him out of that (munitions). I told him you got to get out of that. He had talked about being a veterinarian. He wanted to get enough money to pay for his education," said Gresham, who now lives in Missouri.

As for the war, "First of all, I think he would tell President Bush not to stop," Robert Gresham said. "He would say we need to get this thing done. He was no quitter. When all those people are free, they're signing that declaration, he's going to be right there with them."

A sister, Julie Gresham, 29, of Des Plaines, said her brother "went into the service because he wanted to accomplish something big in his life, which he did."

She described Daniel as "funny, quiet, very reserved, very calm, witty. Oh, I couldn't have had a better brother. He was wise for his age."

Another sister, Elizabeth Gresham, 27, with her mother in Chicago, said, "He was my best friend. At Christmas, he bought me a Rottweiler, 'Maximillion T. Buford.' I was just talking to Daniel Wednesday, telling him how big Max was."

Eric Ferguson, a friend of Daniel's from junior high school in Lincoln, learned of his death Friday night.

"Gosh, he was just hilarious," Ferguson said. "One of the things everybody would say about him, he was always making jokes and had a good sense of humor. He was the one I kind of did playful things with in junior high and early in high school."