Peterson airman killed in Afghanistan bombing

A Peterson Air Force Base airman and two others died Thursday when a roadside bomb detonated in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, the Pentagon has announced.

Airman 1st Class Matthew R. Seidler, 24, of Westminster, Md. with Peterson’s 21st Space Wing died when his vehicle was hit by the explosion.

Also killed were Senior Airman Bryan R. Bell, 23, of Erie, Pa. and Tech. Sgt. Matthew S. Schwartz, 34, of Traverse City, Mich.

Bell was assigned to the 2nd Civil Engineer Squadron, Barksdale Air Force Base, La.
Schwartz was assigned to the 90th Civil Engineer Squadron, FE Warren Air Force Base, Wyo.
Seidler was a bomb-disposal technician with the wing’s 21st Civil Engineer Squadron, the 21st Space Wing said in a news release.

“This is a tragic day for Team Pete, the 21st Space Wing, the 21st Civil Engineer Squadron and especially for Matt’s family,” Col. Chris Crawford, the wing’s commander, said in a statement. “We will come together to help Matt’s family and friends through their grief.”

Seidler joined the Air Force in 2009, the wing said. He was on his first overseas deployment.
He was the first airman in the wing to die in Iraq or Afganistan.

“His parents are receiving him now at Dover Air Force Base,” said Seidler’s aunt, Marcia Seidler, who lives in San Francisco and received news of the death in a phone call from Matthew’s father.

Seidler’s parents, Mark and Lauren, live in Westminster, Md.

“It’s so hard to talk about him right now,” Marcia Seidler said. “We’re packing to fly east in a couple of hours. We don’t even know when the service for him will be yet.”

Seidler died a day after celebrating his 24th birthday.

“We were all putting up beautiful, happy Facebook messages and then the next one is that he is gone,” Marcia Seidler said. “It’s hard to comprehend.”

Matthew’s grandfather Aaron Seidler was a pilot in World War II, Marcia Seidler said.

“Matthew was a very, very sweet guy,” Marcia Seidler said. “He had great artistic talent, and a great mind for computers.”

At any given time, hundreds of airmen from Colorado Springs bases are deployed in Afghanistan.

Many of those airmen are filling roles that traditionally have been held by soldiers and Marines.

Bomb disposal technicians have been in especially high demand in Afghanistan, where the roadside bomb has been adopted as the insurgent’s weapon of choice.