Staff Sgt. Kyle Malin of Lakeville was in a mud-walled forward base camp northwest of Kandahar City in Afghanistan when his U.S. Army squad heard an explosion. The radio snapped: "Man down."

A soldier had stepped on a land mine while his squad was moving through grape and pomegranate fields. His leg was blown off. A helicopter tried to rescue him, but insurgents deterred it with ground fire.

Malin's squad headed out that hot July day to clear the insurgents so the chopper could land.

On the way, Malin's point man saw something suspicious in a crater and stopped the unit. Malin, the squad leader, approached to check it out. Seconds later he stepped on a land mine and his world changed forever.

"I felt my body rise up and there was sand everywhere," Malin recalled, sitting in his wheelchair at the dining room table of his parents' home in Lakeville.

"The dust engulfed me. Everything from my waist down felt like it was on fire."

He blacked out, revived briefly to see an Army doctor had put tourniquets on what was left of his legs, and faded again. Then he was being strapped on a stretcher and loaded into the helicopter. Medics shot him full of painkillers and medication. The next time Malin was conscious, he was at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. He doesn't recall four days that he spent en route at an Army hospital in Germany.

When Malin, 28, awoke at Walter Reed, his first words were asking how his squad men had fared. Then he said "I love you," said his wife, Alicia, who sat at his bedside.

When word of Malin's sacrifice for his squad and country reached Lakeville, the City Council last week declared Monday Kyle Malin Day. And the Minnesota Twins have invited Malin to hoist the Stars and Stripes before Monday's game and gave him a block of seats.

"Pretty cool," Malin said. His wife sat nearby drinking coffee and their two young sons played in another room.

Lakeville residents were asked to fly American flags Monday and display yellow ribbons to welcome Malin home. He served three tours in Iraq before being deployed in Afghanistan last June.

Malin grew up in Lakeville. He graduated in 2002 from Farmington High School, where he was a top wrestler, played football and ran the 200 meters in track.

"He was good-natured, but when he got on the mat he was a real competitor," said his dad, Jon Malin, who coached him three years as a varsity wrestler at Farmington High.

Malin said he didn't know what career to try after high school and thought he'd figure it out in the Army, where he was trained in artillery and air assaults. He was promoted five times in six years. "I really enjoy the military," he said.

Doctors expect it will take more than two years of physical therapy for Malin to be able to walk "semi-normal with a cane," said Alicia Malin. She said Malin has had more than 70 surgeries for his back, buttocks and abdomen and to clean out infections in his legs. Her husband said he is learning to walk with gradually lengthened prosthetic legs that eventually will have knee joints added. Both legs have been amputated above the knee. He will soon resume therapy at an Army rehabilitation center in San Antonio.

Despite the traumatic changes to his life almost a year ago, Malin is still a laid-back guy.

"He is not much different in his attitude toward life. He still feels there is something out there for him," his dad said. "His attitude has been really good. ... He looks forward and doesn't look back too much."

His boys, Kalib, 6, and Cy, 4, first visited him three months after the July 12 explosion. They were told of his injury and asked to see his legs. Malin lifted the sheet.

"Oh, wow!" Kalib said.

Cy stared at the two stubs: "Daddy, you have boo-boos."

"Yeah," his dad replied.

"It's OK, Daddy. I will kiss it and make it better."

"He definitely made it feel better," Malin recalled.

Alicia Malin said she had told the boys that their father was really hurt and lost his legs, but he would get new ones.

"I said, 'Daddy is a hero and he did a good job and saved a lot of people's lives.'"

Jim Adams • 952-707-9996