Ryan P Jones

BOSTON — An Army officer from Westminster who served with the famed “Big Red One” 1st Infantry Division was killed in Iraq this week when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb, the Pentagon announced May 4.

Army 1st Lt. Ryan P. Jones, 23, and Spc. Astor Sunsin-Pineda, 20, of Long Beach, Calif., died of wounds suffered in the attack May 2 in Baghdad. Both soldiers were combat engineers, who are typically responsible for clearing routes of roadside bombs or other explosive devices.

Eleven days before he died, Jones described the perils of his mission in a letter to members of the Junior ROTC program at the Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School,...