TOPEKA, Kan. -- A National Guard soldier who worked in Burlington, Colo., was killed Sunday in Iraq, his father said.
Derrick Joseph Lutters, assigned to the 891st Engineer Battalion in Iola, Kan., was killed when a suicide bomber attacked his vehicle south of Baghdad, Chuck Lutters said.
Derrick Lutters, 24, was single and worked as a corrections officer in Burlington, about 15 miles west of the Kansas-Colorado border. He moved to Burlington after graduating from Goodland High School in 1999. His family still lives in Goodland.
Chuck Lutters said he talked with his son Saturday and could tell the war was wearing on him.
"The last few times, you could just hear the uncertainty in his voice. This is not as good as he thought it would be," he said.
Goodland High School principal Harvey Sager said Derrick Lutters' death hit the community hard.
The father said his son wanted to be a peacemaker and saw his deployment to Iraq as a way to fulfill that role.
"That's just the way he was. That's one of the reasons that he went to Iraq. He volunteered to go," Chuck Lutters said from his Goodland home.
Lutters remembers the time his son, a high school wrestler, faced a mentally retarded opponent and let him win.
"He let the boy take him down, and when he did he patted him on the back to say 'good job,"' Chuck Lutters said. "He got a standing ovation from the crowd and the coaches shook his hand."
Goodland wrestling coach Randy Bahe added: "He knew he wasn't going to prove anything by tearing this kid up on the wrestling mat."
Goodland High School principal Harvey Swager said the death hit Goodland hard.
"It brings the Iraq war to our home port," Swager said. "Now it's on our front porch. The funeral will be a very sad day for our community. They know he gave his life for something that he believed in."
Funeral services are pending.
