INDEPENDENCE, MO. ? An Army soldier from Independence was killed in Iraq when a bomb was detonated beneath his vehicle in Fallujah, the Department of Defense said Saturday.

Family members said they were told Spc. Joel Bertoldie, 20, was driving a Humvee on Friday when the bomb detonated, throwing Bertoldie from the vehicle. Bertoldie’s convoy was going through a traffic circle near a key bridge over the Euphrates River, a military spokeswoman said.

“It’s a chicken thing to do to put a bomb somewhere and wait for someone to go stumbling over it,” Scott Bertoldie, Joel’s father, told WDAF-TV.

Joel Bertoldie grew up in Independence, graduated from Truman High School in 2001 and joined the Army to help pay for college.

“I think he really liked the Army,” his grandmother Judy Hampshire, of Independence, told The Kansas City Star. But, she said, “he wanted to come home.”

Bertoldie had been based at Fort Stewart in Georgia before he was deployed to Kuwait in November 2002. That was the last time the family had seen him.

Bertoldie’s family said they received an e-mail from him Friday, hours before he died. Bertoldie’s mother, Debi, said her son talked about coming home.

“He missed his family,” she said. “He was doing his job and he wanted to be home with his family.”

Originally, Bertoldie was told he would be home by late July, but that was changed to October and eventually he was told he’d stay in Iraq indefinitely, family members said.

Bertoldie had made good grades in high school and wanted to become a marine biologist, Hampshire said. She said Bertoldie was a bright, outgoing young man, who loved riding self-propelled skis on family trips to the Lake of the Ozarks and loved teasing his grandparents about why his favorite team — the Dallas Cowboys — was so much better than the Kansas City Chiefs.

Friends of Spc. Joel Bertoldie, of Independence, Mo., pay their respects at a memorial service at the U.S. army base in Habbaniya, Iraq. The service was conducted Sunday. Bertoldie was killed when a bomb was detonated beneath his vehicle in Fallujah, the Department of Defense said Saturday.

“He was really, really a great kid,” said Adrian Hampshire, Joel Bertoldie’s stepgrandfather.

Bertoldie had been in the Army for two years and was part of the 3rd Infantry Division. He also had a 10-month old son, Jesse.

“He was just pretty happy-go-lucky, you know. If he wanted to do something, he did it. He didn’t hold back.” Debi Bertoldie said.