Soldier killed in copter crash: Mercedes native is the first in Valley to die in Afghanistan

SAN JUAN-- As a boy in Mercedes, Daniel Galvan dreamed of flying Army aircraft.

Thursday, the Army sergeant was on a Black Hawk helicopter when it crashed in Afghanistan two days after his 30th birthday.

"As a young child, he would draw pictures of helicopters. That's what he wanted to do," his father, retired Master Sgt. Ernest Galvan, said from his home in Moore, Okla. "My son was doing the job he loved. He was doing the job he believed in."

Galvan, a helicopter crew chief, became the first Rio Grande Valley soldier to die in Afghanistan. Seven Valley servicemen have died in the war in Iraq.

In San Juan, Consuelo Galvan clutched her grandson's photograph as she remembered his plans to get his pilot's license.

"He told me, When I get my license, I'm going to take you on the helicopter with me,'" she said as her eyes swelled with tears behind dark sunglasses. "And I never had the chance."

Galvan was on the helicopter that carried Marines to a "hot spot of Taliban terrorists" when a "major malfunction" led the aircraft to crash, his father said.

Galvan, who was married with two stepchildren, was the only soldier to die when the helicopter carrying 13 crashed in a turbulent Afghan province north of Kabul near the Pakistani border, his father said.

"I supported my son," said his father, a

Vietnam veteran.

"The people we're after in Afghanistan are the people responsible for what happened in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. I'm proud of my son."

The family's strong military tradition helped lead Galvan into the Army, his father said.

Galvan's second oldest brother, Ernesto, served in Desert Storm in 1990, said Ernest Galvan, whose older brother Mike fought in Vietnam. All three of his sons served in the military, Ernest Galvan said.

"It was not what we wanted for our children," he said. "He always thought it was his and everybody's obligation to serve their country."

After her cousin died fighting in Germany in World War II, Consuelo Galvan feared war would bring more death to her family, she said.

"I'd tell (Daniel) to finish school and go to college, but he said, No, I want to be a pilot. I want you to be proud that you're going to have a pilot,'" she said.

"I used to ask him, Why do you like danger?' And he said that in any place you go there can be danger."

Galvan will be buried in Lubbock, his wife Sonya's hometown, his father said.

"He was our baby," Ernest Galvan said of his youngest child as he fought back tears. "He felt he was doing something that needed to be done, that we are in Afghanistan for a valid reason because it was important for us to look them in the eyes and fight. And that's what he was doing for our country."