GREELEY, Colo. -- While the country paused to honor our veterans on Veteran's Day a community in Greeley said goodbye to a young soldier who was killed while serving in Iraq.

Pfc. Tyler Ryan MacKenzie, 20, died Nov. 2, when a roadside bomb blew up south of Baghdad near the Humvee he and his fellow soldiers were riding in.

MacKenzie was assigned to the First Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, Second Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky. He was the first Weld County resident killed in the Iraq war. MacKenzie was a 2003 graduate of Greeley West High School, where he played football for the Spartans.

He joined the Army 10 months ago, completed basic training in May, and was deployed just six weeks ago on Sept. 28.

More than 1,000 people turned out Friday for his funeral at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Greeley. Hundreds more stood outside to pay tribute.

Members of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas picketed along a sidewalk across the street from MacKenzie's funeral. Protest organizers are not saying MacKenzie was gay, only that he died for America -- and that America supports homosexuals.

Westboro demonstrators also disrupted the Hudson, Wisconsin funeral for Specialist Benjamin Smith -- carrying signs reading "God blew up the troops," "America is doomed" and "God hates America."

The group also protested the 1998 funeral of murdered Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard. The demonstrators claimed Shepard deserved to die because he was gay.

The church's Web site now includes a daily counter of the number of days Westboro Pastor Fred Phelps and his supporters say Shepard "has been in hell" because of his sexual orientation.

MacKenzie's grandfather, Emmett, learned of the group's Greeley plans Wednesday, but said "they have that right. That's why Tyler gave his life."

Two other Fort Campbell soldiers died in the same attack that killed MacKenzie.