CHAPMANVILLE, W.Va. — A West Virginia soldier who left Marshall University one semester shy of graduation and joined the Army has been killed in Iraq, relatives say.

Pfc. Brian Scott Ulbrich, 23, served as a lookout for bombs and insurgents ahead of his unit. He died Sunday after explosions rocked his Humvee, said his mother, Barbara Ulbrich.

Ulbrich graduated in 1999 from Scott High School in Madison. He studied criminal justice at Marshall and had hoped to become an FBI agent but changed his mind, his mother said.

He started training with the Army in April 2004 and joined a Fort Carson, Colo.-based unit that went overseas in March.

He had spent his weekends home from Marshall doing part-time work at a Boone County coal mine that included running a bulldozer.

On a recent mission, Ulbrich’s unit came upon a canal that looked to be uncrossable. He spotted a bulldozer nearby and hopped aboard. Before his commanding officers could react, he had the engine started and had a plan to cross the canal.

Barbara Ulbrich said that when a doubting officer questioned her son, he replied, “Sir, I’m a West Virginia coal miner and I know what I’m doing.”

He plowed a path that helped his unit navigate the canal a short time later.

“He always made the best out of any situation,” his mother said.