So. Maryland soldier dies in Afghanistan

Baumann, 24, hailed as hero

Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Photo courtesy of JUSTIN MERRIMAN Sgt. Ryan Patrick Baumann patrols the hills of Afghanistan, where the Great Mills High School graduate died last week. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

‘‘Ryan was a hero,” Lauren Smith said of the 24-year-old sergeant she met while they were students at Great Mills High School. ‘‘Ryan would not have wanted to die any other way than next to his soldiers, and for them.”

Cindy Lohman, a nurse with the Calvert County Health Department, shared a similar sentiment as she too reflected at her Great Mills home on the loss of her son.

‘‘You never expect this,” Lohman said. ‘‘He is a hero.”

Baumann died last Friday, military authorities report, when an improvised explosive device exploded near the vehicle in which he was traveling on Route Alaska in Afghanistan. Baumann was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell, Ky., specifically with the 4th Battalion of the 320th Field Artillery Regiment’s 4th Brigade.

Baumann’s family will receive visitors starting at 2 p.m. next Sunday, Aug. 10, at the Brinsfield Funeral Home in Leonardtown, where prayers will be held at 4 p.m. that day and a funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. next Monday, Aug. 11. He will be buried at 2 p.m. that day at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, and plans are under way to encourage residents to stand and fly flags along the route from the funeral home along Hollywood Road and north on Route 5.

Born in Ohio, Baumann lived with his mother and stepfather in Germany before they moved to St. Mary’s and he enrolled at Great Mills. A love of photography grew out of classes at the school with teacher Lori Sides.

The soldier later kept in touch with the photography teacher, sending her e-mails and stopping in for visits at school while on leave.

‘‘You just don’t believe it when you hear it,” Sides said. ‘‘My heart goes out to them,” she said of his family.

Sides had heard that Baumann grabbed the wheel of the vehicle and tried to swerve around the IED, placing the explosion on his side of the vehicle.

‘‘I could see Ryan doing that,” Sides said. ‘‘He was that type of person. He really cared about others.”

Sides said that he and his future fiancee would often hang out in the photography department, and that Baumann would spend his lunches in the darkroom working on prints.

‘‘He’s the kind of student teachers hope for. He was motivated and dedicated,” Sides said.

Justin Merriman spent two weeks in May with Baumann while on assignment for a Pittsburgh newspaper as an embedded photographer. Merriman said he got to know Baumann well during his time in Afghanistan and in communications since.

Merriman said that Baumann and his unit hit another IED about a couple of weeks ago, but he was not seriously injured.

He heard reports that Baumann was coming back from a night mission in the Khost province along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border when his Humvee hit the IED that killed him. At least two others in his unit were injured, Merriman said.

‘‘Every time we lose one of these guys it’s a loss to our country,” Merriman said.

The family was notified midday Friday, and Baumann’s body arrived the next day at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware where there was a solemn ceremony, his stepfather Gary Lohman said.