An Illinois Army National Guardsman who lived with his grandmother in Peyton as a teenager was killed earlier this month in Afghanistan by a roadside bomb that detonated near his vehicle.

Sgt. Chester Wayne Hosford, 35, was weeks away from completing his first deployment when a bomb killed him and three other U.S. soldiers in Konduz, Afghanistan, on July 6.

He was a member of the 2nd Battalion, 106th Cavalry Regiment, based in Dixon, Ill.

Friends and family said Hosford, known as Wayne, was a loyal friend who was always kind and selfless.

“He would give you the shirt off his back if he thought that you needed it worse than he did,” said Eloise Simmons, his grandmother with whom he came to live when he was 14 after his mother was killed. “That’s the kind of person he was.”

He was deeply affected by the death of his mother, his grandmother said.

Hosford and his two brothers and a sister moved from Baton Rouge, La., to Colorado to live with Simmons.

She said Hosford helped her raise his siblings, but shied away from making many new friends in his new home. He played basketball and football at Sage Creek School, a private religious school in Peyton.

After graduating from Sage Creek in 1993, he joined the Marine Corps, but left early.

Brendee Roberts, 28, met Hosford in Colorado Springs in 2001, and the two dated for eight months. She described him as a fun-loving guy, especially among those he knew.

“He protected his family and his friends, especially the ones that were very close to him,” Roberts said.

Hosford was living in Hastings, Minn., near his brother and sister, when he joined the Minnesota Army National Guard in 2006. In April 2008 he transferred to the Illinois Army National Guard.

Hosford loved being a soldier, said Roberts, who rekindled their friendship on MySpace two years ago. Patriotism had a lot to do with it, she said, but he also liked to meet new people and travel to exotic places like Egypt.

He deployed to Afghanistan with the 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team in August 2008 to train the Afghan National Police.

He was a “true soldier and took his job VERY seriously,” Jose Torres, who served alongside Hosford in Afghanistan, wrote in an e-mail. “Wayne dominated the gunners turret and the streets whenever he was up there.”

Hosford was divorced and had two children.

A visitation is scheduled for Sunday in Hastings, Minn., and the funeral will be on Monday at the Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis.

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Contact the writer at 636-0368.

Wayne Hosford was in the National Guard and recently was killed in action. Photo by

Eloise Simmons looks over photos of her grandson, Wayne Hosford, in her home East of Colorado Springs, Co., July 17, 2009. Hosford was in the National Guard and recently was killed in action. Photo by Cole W. Eberle, The Gazette

COLE W. EBERLE