As a toddler, Matthew Lourey dreamed of flying one day. A picture of him as an adult as a Chief Warrant Officer in the U.S. Army in a crisp flight suit shows him beaming in front of his Kiowa Warrior helicopter.

Lourey, the second son of state Sen. Becky Lourey of Kerrick, was doing what he loved - and what he considered his duty - when he and another U.S. soldier were killed Thursday when their helicopter crashed after being shot at in central Iraq.

He was 40; it was his second tour of duty.

The crash came as the Iraqi government prepared to ring Baghdad with tens of thousands of security forces to curb the rampant insurgency.

"He, like so many other soldiers, believed sincerely and completely in his duty to his country and fellow soldiers," the Lourey family said in a statement. "He served his nation knowing far better than most of us what dangers awaited him and he faced those dangers with the greatest of courage."

Sen. Lourey is a DFLer who was a candidate for governor in 2002 and is often mentioned as a possible candidate for that office in the future. She had 12 children, two of whom had died previously.

At the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar, said negotiation sessions between the governor and legislative leaders would be canceled at least until Tuesday.

As relatives and friends gathered Friday at the family home in Pine County's Kerrick Township, Becky Lourey, an outspoken opponent of the war in Iraq, said she admired her son's sense of duty.
Outside the house, U.S. and Minnesota flags were lowered to half-staff.

"He was such an excellent pilot, I never thought he'd go down," Lourey said, fingering a pocket guide to military helicopters. "Who better than someone as committed to his country and his fellow
servicemen than Matt protecting us?"

Matt Lourey, who was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., was one of the older pilots in the military and was close to retirement. At one point he had been offered a chance to move away from helicopters to fly fixed-wing aircraft. It would have meant several years of training and a likely return to Washington, D.C., where he and his wife, Lisa, had recently purchased a home in the Maryland
suburbs. Lisa, who is regular Army, works at the Pentagon.

Instead he went back to Iraq, reasoning that his experience could be best used there. His family strongly urged him not to go.

"He went back over there. He didn't have to. He volunteered," said his brother Tim, 42, a crane operator who lives in Oliver, Wis. "I told him, `Brother, I admire you, I respect you and my love goes with you.'-"

When Becky Lourey prepared a Senate petition two years ago urging President Bush not to go to war in Iraq, she first sent it to Matt and asked his permission. He gave it.

"I thought this was an inappropriate war, but that didn't make Matt's responsibility any less," she said.

Matt himself had expressed reservations, particularly after his first tour of duty, which involved providing air cover for infantry, said his brother Tony, 37, a public policy consultant who lives near Kerrick Township.

"We have pretty strong feelings, really. We don't believe that we had any business over there. I'm speaking for me, I know I'm speaking for Dad when I say that," Tony Lourey said. But, he said, his brother felt honor-bound to go back. He had also been moved by the devastation of war in Bosnia during an earlier tour in the Balkans.

"We all talked to him and said, `Matt, what they hell are you doing? Don't go back over there.' But he said, `I signed up for this, I know the risks, the U.S. paid me to learn how to fly this bird.' "

Childhood dream