By Daniel Hartill,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – In the last moments of his life, Sgt. 1st Class Shawn Dostie saved his soldiers.

The 32-year-old Lewiston native weathered the full force of an explosion from a homemade bomb on Dec. 30. It killed him, but he saved three other U.S. Army soldiers who were riding in the Humvee.

“He was doing everything he could to protect his people,” Dostie’s widow, Stephanie, said Wednesday.

“When he went to Iraq, all he wanted was to make sure his platoon made it back,” Stephanie Dostie said in a telephone interview from her home in Fort Campbell, Ky. “He took the blast.”

Shawn Dostie left behind Stephanie, their two children and a family that began mourning 11 hours after the fatal Friday morning explosion on a Baghdad street.

That family stretches from Kentucky to Maine.

Shawn grew up in the Lewiston area, living in Lewiston and Turner until he was 14.

In 1986, he moved with his parents, Robert and Delaine Fugere, to Granite City, Ill. The family moved back to Lewiston when Shawn was in his senior year of high school.

Shawn graduated from Lewiston High in 1991 and entered the Army.

“From the time he was a young boy, he always had a job and took pride in whatever he did,” Dostie’s parents said in a prepared statement. “He was a very sensitive little boy and that carried through to his adult life.”

The Army sent him to Georgia, Germany and Italy. He and Stephanie had a boy and a girl: Cameron, 8, and Bayleigh, 5.

“When he wasn’t working, he loved playing soccer with the children or taking family trips,” Stephanie said, crying as she recalled trips to Disney World. “We always knew there was little time for family, so he made the most of it.”

Meanwhile, his work grew in importance as the war began. He became a drill instructor, preparing soldiers for life in the Army. Then, he drew orders for Iraq, leading a platoon of 12 men and women.

He was assigned to D Company, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division.

He left on Sept. 27.

Since then, there were e-mails and phone calls. Shawn and Stephanie talked about once a week over the past months.

They last talked three days before he died.

“He worried about the 12 guys in his platoon, his men,” Stephanie said.

Nothing could prepare her or the family for last Friday’s loss, though.

Casualty assistance officers from the Army informed Stephanie in person. Others were waiting outside Shawn’s parents’ home in Lewiston when his mother, Delaine Fugere, came home from work.

“A van was in the driveway,” Fugere recalled. Within minutes, she and Shawn’s father, Robert Fugere, were preparing to fly to Stephanie’s side in Kentucky.

According to Army officials, soldiers plan to hold a memorial service for Shawn in Iraq. He will also be remembered at Fort Campbell, where a monthly Eagle Remembrance Ceremony recalls each of the 101st Airborne Division’s losses in the Middle East.

About 20,600 soldiers from the Kentucky Army post are deployed in Iraq.

There will also be a service in Lewiston in about two weeks, Stephanie said. She and the children plan to move to Lewiston to be close to Shawn’s parents. His sister, Crystal Desrossiers, also lives nearby.

“Right now, it feels like we all need to be closer,” Stephanie said.