SEATTLE - Six soldiers from Fort Lewis and a freelance news photographer from Russia were killed by a roadside bomb blast in Iraq, officials have confirmed.

Names of the Stryker Brigade soldiers were not released by the Department of Defense but relatives identified four of them Monday as Pfc. Michael Pursel, 19, formerly of Lacey and more recently of Utah; Spc. Anthony Bradshaw, 21, of El Paso, Texas; Spc. Joel Lewis, 28, of Tulsa, Okla., and Sgt. Jason R. Harkins, 25, of Georgia.

Military officials did say six Task Force Lightning soldiers from the post south of Tacoma and a civilian journalist died and two soldiers were wounded in an improvised explosive device attack Sunday in Diyala Province.

Fort Lewis spokeswoman Catherine Caruso confirmed the dead troops were from the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, a Stryker Brigade combat team Tacoma. An al-Qaida front organization, the Islamic State of Iraq, issued a Web statement claiming responsibility for the attack.

Lewis was born in Ontario, Canada, and was working on becoming a U.S. citizen, his brother, Justin Lewis said in an e-mail to KING 5 News.

"He was a thrill seeker who liked to scuba dive, skydive and play hockey (like any good Canadian)," he said.

Justin Lewis

Joel Lewis, 28, was born in Ontario, Canada, and was working toward becoming an American citizen, his brother said.

A memorial service for the soldiers is tentatively set for next Tuesday at Fort Lewis.

It was the most casualties suffered by a Fort Lewis unit in one attack since six soldiers with the 1st Stryker Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, died in a suicide bombing on Dec. 21, 2004, at a dining tent in Mosul.

It was also the worst hit to date on the Stryker, a faster eight-wheeled armored troop carrier that is the mainstay of the Fort Lewis infantry brigades. Previously, the worst was in April 2005, when two Fort Lewis soldiers and two from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Fort Collins, Colo., died in an explosion near Tal Afar.

Fort Lewis has lost 105 personnel in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

Pursel volunteered to go to Iraq when the Army asked for replacements for a Fort Lewis infantry battalion that had taken numerous casualties, said his mother, Terry Dutcher.

The Olympian

Pfc. Michael Pursel, 19, was one of six Fort Lewis Stryker Brigade members killed by a roadside bomb in Diyala Province, Iraq on Sunday, May 6, 2007.

"Michael was one of the first ones to raise his hand to go," she told The Olympian newspaper of Olympia.

Pursel had been in Iraq a little more than a month, but Dutcher, a captain in the Air Force Reserve who lives in Utah, said her son died living his dream.

"We're proud of Michael, and Michael was doing what he always wanted to do," she said. "In light of how it turned out, I know Michael was happy. I just take peace in that right now."

Pursel moved to Lacey in 1998, when his father was reassigned from Germany to Fort Lewis. He attended Christian Life Church and its academy, Christian Life School, the newspaper said.

His family moved to Utah in 2000, and his parents later divorced.

"You don't believe it. You just want to know what happened," Bradshaw's cousin, Andrea Shea, told KTSM Television in El Paso.

Bradshaw and a twin brother enlisted in the Army while an older brother was already serving, relatives said.

Shea said Bradshaw was proud to come from a military family.

The News Tribune of Tacoma reported that Harkins had been previously served Iraq in 2003-04. His death was confirmed by relatives in an interview broadcast by WRWH Radio in Cleveland, Ga.

Lewis mother, Gale Poindexter, told The News Tribune her son was born in Canada, moved to Oklahoma about 13 years ago and spent a year in Korea with the Army before moving to Fort Lewis.

"He had a great smile and made friends very quickly," Poindexter said. "He served proudly and wanted to do his duty to help his fellow soldiers."