Army Maj. Mark E. Rosenberg

Died April 08, 2008 serving during Operation Iraqi Freedom

32, of Miami Lakes, Fla.; assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 29th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.; died April 8 in Baghdad of wounds sustained when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device.

Army Maj. Mark E. Rosenberg remembered

The Associated Press

Mark E. Rosenberg and his sister, Lori Sousa, were close. Their weddings were only a day apart in 1999.

“I got married at the Sheraton in Dania, and he got married at the Hilton across the street the following day,” she said. “It was a lot of fun.”

Rosenberg, 32, of Miami Lakes, Fla., was killed April 8 in Baghdad after his vehicle struck an explosive. He was assigned to Fort Carson and was a 1996 graduate of the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, N.M.

“He was a wonderful, wonderful man,” said Amanda Greer, who met Rosenberg and his wife when the three were students at the academy. “He had a smile for everybody.”

Rosenberg enlisted in the Army in 1996 and was deployed to South Korea between 2001 and 2002. He served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and returned last year.

He loved scuba diving, playing Wii with his family and tinkering with things around the house.

“He was the life of the party, an infectious laugh,” Sousa said. “Everybody wants to be around him. A wonderful father.”

He is survived by his wife, Julie, and two sons, Maxwell, 1, and Joshua, 3.