ELKIN — Elkin has lost a war hero.

Army Capt. Mark Garner was killed in Afghanistan Monday when a roadside bomb exploded underneath the vehicle he and three others were riding in according to the military.

Garner served in the 82nd Airborne Division.

Escalating violence has resulted in this being one of the deadliest weeks for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Garner was a 1997 Elkin High School graduate who excelled in sports. Football, basketball and baseball awards at the school are engraved with the soldier’s name. Garner later attended and graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

Garner and wife Nickala Myers Garner have been living in Germany where Garner was stationed in 2008. Both were residents of Elkin and State Road.

“Mark’s parents lived behind us in State Road,” Jeff Cape, president of the Elkin Sertoma Club, said. “Mark’s mother taught both of my children in school. The last I heard of Mark was when we received word that he had made Captain. Our son Daniel is a Captain in the army also. Mark and his sister played with our boys when they were all little.”

Cape said he had received a call from Teresa Howell asking the Sertoma Club to place the flags back downtown in honor of Mark.

“We’re asking all businesses to hang the flags on Friday afternoon,” he said.

“His mother probably would tell you that as a young boy he always aspired to be a soldier, and I think the qualities he had in high school certainly would be those which are ideal for a soldier,” said Perry Lloyd, Garner’s former teacher and coach, told WXII 12.

The family has gone to Dover, Del., to receive Garner’s body as it arrives stateside, according to Garner’s aunt.

A small memorial service will be held in Delaware, and then his body will be brought back to Elkin. Funeral arrangements have not yet been made.