DENVER -- A 21-year-old Marine from Aurora, Colo., lost his foot when a land mine exploded Sunday in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

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Colorado Marine Loses Foot In Explosion

The Marines said Cpl. Christopher Chandler (pictured, left) was hurt as he helped sweep for mines at the Kandahar airport. Two others, Sgt. Adrian Aranda, 22, of El Paso, Texas, and Lance Cpl. Nicholas Sovereign, 20, of Battle Creek, Neb., suffered hand and head injuries, officials said.

All three were assigned to the same battalion with the 15th Marine Expiditonary Unit at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

"My dad called him this morning and patched my mom and I in at home," said his 18-year-old sister, Stephanie. "Chris didn't get very many words out. We were busy telling him we're proud of him and we love him."

"All he told us was he's fine and, 'Please don't worry about me,"' Stephanie said. He was to be flown to a hospital in Germany on Wednesday.

Chandler graduated from Gateway High School in 1998.

"My first thought (was) he was a violin player in orchestra, and now he's a Marine defending our freedom," said Chandler's former teacher, Tim Libby.

"How proud I felt that one of my students is out there for me and for the rest of us -- that are there doing a job I know a lot of us wouldn't want to be doing right now. I'm so proud of him," Libby said.

Chandler surprised his family with his decision to join the Marines, going off to boot camp the summer after high school graduation, his sister said.

"I guess it made sense," she said. "He was always looking out after his family, now he's out looking after everybody else."

The family was together in August just before Chandler headed out for a six-month maneuver that was supposed to be near Australia, but instead took him to Afghanistan.

Before leaving, Chandler and his father went hiking in Colorado's high country.

"He's the outdoorsy-type," said Chandler's sister. "He hikes, he runs, he's just really big on staying healthy."

A neighbor who knew Chandler before he joined the Marines told 7NEWS that Chandler was very friendly.

"Oh, great kid. Every time he was around, he'd come over and talk to us. He'd play with our kids all the time, and, he was considerably older than our kids, but he was out here wrestling with them. Great kid," neighbor Brett Hedler said.

"He enjoyed his job. He said it was a lot of work, boot camp and stuff, but he enjoyed it," he said.

Hedler had no idea that his former neighbor was among the American forces securing Afghanistan, half a world away.

"It makes it a lot closer now than it was before," Hedler said.

"It takes a lot of guts, a lot of willpower to go out there and do something like what they're doing," he said.

The Kandahar airport is littered with unmarked land mines and weapons left behind by the Taliban, military officials said. There is no running water, and the only electricity comes from portable generators, 7NEWS reported.

The Marines plan to use the airport as a base of operations.

Chandler was flown to Oman for treatment, and was to be taken to Germany on Wednesday. His family did not know when he might come home.

He has been a Marine for four years.

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