On Jan. 28, 2008, six days before his 21st birthday, Spc. Brandon Meyer was killed — along with four other Soldiers — when their unit encountered a makeshift bomb during convoy operations in Mosul.

Earlier this month, the California Patriot Guard Riders rode in Meyer’s funeral mission in Orange, California. Tomorrow, I’ll join my brothers and sisters of the Central Texas PGR in a memorial mission at the state capitol building, where his portrait will be unveiled and hung in the Capitol Rotunda.

Meyer was a graduate of Canyon High School, in the Texas Hill Country near Austin.

Meyer was an all-American kind of kid — a star baseball player, a good student (he was studying Biology at Concordia University in Irvine), the son of a Lutheran preacher. He was deeply religious and deeply patriotic:

From the LA Times:

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

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.

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.

I’ll post an update tomorrow after the PGR mission (which, thankfully is during lunch tomorrow).