APOLLO, Pa. -- More than 300 people gathered last night in the high school football stadium to remember 2nd Lt. Michael R. Girdano, officer, gentleman and casualty of war.

Lt. Girdano was the pride of Apollo, a gifted student who made up his mind in middle school to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., then serve his country as an Army officer.

With hard work, his boyhood dream came true. He graduated from West Point last year, and drew a command assignment to a Middle East combat zone this spring.

Lt. Girdano, though, lived only to age 23. He died Aug. 1, when a roadside bomb exploded in Chowkay Valley, Afghanistan. Three of his soldiers, from California, Illinois and Kansas, died with him.

Lt. Michael Girdano.

He was the third graduate of Apollo-Ridge High School killed in Iraq or Afghanistan since the war began in 2003. Armstrong County, where Apollo is located, has a population of 70,000. It has lost seven servicemen in the war, one of the higher per capita totals in Pennsylvania, which has had 210 war deaths.

Mourners streamed into Owens Field last night wearing T-shirts emblazoned with a picture of Lt. Girdano. His father, Robert, sat stoically, and his mother, Cynthia, tried not to cry as she listened to nine speakers recount her son's life.

One was Billy Peace, a friend of Lt. Girdano's since boyhood. He said Lt. Girdano strived to be the best at whatever he attempted, but he never bragged about West Point or any other achievement. Instead, Mr. Peace said, Lt. Girdano was always the first to help a friend who had a problem or an unpleasant chore.

"If someone was down, he would bring him up. I never saw him depressed," Mr. Peace said.

Mr. Peace spoke by telephone with Lt. Girdano on July 31, the last conversation he had with any of his friends or relatives back home. Not a word was spoken about the war. Lt. Girdano, as always, kept the focus off himself and asked about everybody in Apollo, Mr. Peace said.

Lt. Andrew Morgan, for three years Lt. Girdano's roommate at West Point, said Lt. Girdano was a natural leader with all the right instincts.

Competition at West Point is keen, but Lt. Girdano never got caught up in worrying about achievements or self-image, Lt. Morgan said. His style was think of his unit first and himself last.

"People didn't follow him because he outranked them or he yelled at them. They followed him because they wanted to," Lt. Morgan said.

John Simon, now the head football coach at Apollo-Ridge, was an assistant when Lt. Girdano went through the arduous application process at West Point. He said Michael tore knee ligaments playing football during his junior year of high school, putting his appointment to the academy in jeopardy.

"It was one of the many times he showed his diligence. He rehabbed the hardest of anybody I've ever seen, and he got into West Point," Mr. Simon said.

Apollo-Ridge High School graduates about 100 students a year. Just 1 percent enter military service, said School Superintendent Cheryl Griffith. Though the numbers are small, the school marked its third wartime casualty with the death of Lt. Girdano, who graduated in 2003.

The other Apollo-Ridge graduates killed in the war were Staff Sgt. Stevon A. Booker, a member of the class of 1987, and Spc. Joshua Henry, who graduated in 2001. Their relatives were in the crowd at Owens Field last night.

Spc. Henry also played football at Apollo-Ridge. The school will retire his No. 65 and Lt. Girdano's No. 22 jerseys at its first home game Sept. 5.