ARLINGTON, Va. (ABP) -- An independent Baptist who died Aug. 30 in Afghanistan is the first United States Army chaplain to be killed in the line of duty since the Vietnam conflict, according to Army officials.

Dale Goetz (courtesy Maranatha Baptist Bible College)

Capt. Dale Goetz, 43, was killed by a roadside bomb that exploded under his convoy. Goetz had reportedly been in Afghanistan less than a month. Four other soldiers perished alongside him.

An Oregon native, Goetz graduated from Maranatha Baptist Bible College in Watertown, Wis. and Central Baptist Theological Seminary of Minneapolis in Plymouth, Minn. The independent Baptist school is not related to the similarly named Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee, Kan., which relates to American Baptist Churches USA and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. His chaplaincy endorsement was through the American Council of Christian Churches, a coalition of small independent and fundamentalist denominations formed as an alternative to the mainline National Council of Churches.

Goetz was stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colo. He and his wife, Christy, had three sons, according to a tribute posted on Maranatha Baptist Bible College’s website. 

Jason Parker, Goetz’s pastor at High Country Baptist Church in Colorado Springs, said the late chaplain “was passionate about seeing his soldiers turn from their sin and trust in Christ as their Savior. He wanted men to know the eternal joy of knowing Christ.”

Christy and Dale Goetz (courtesy Maranatha Baptist Bible College)

He reportedly joined the Army in 2000, going there from the pastorate of a church in White, S.D. He also served a tour in Iraq.

According to High Country Baptist Church, a trust fund has been established at a Colorado Springs bank in Goetz’s name. Contributions will help “to provide quality, biblically sound books and other printed materials for chaplains to use in their ministry to the soldiers,” a statement about the fund on the church’s website says. “Dale always wished he had more good materials to distribute, so Christy would like to help meet that need for other chaplains through this fund.”

Goetz’s funeral is scheduled for Sept. 9 at 10 a.m. local time at Fort Carson’s Prussman Chapel.

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