The sharp cracks of a 21-gun salute pierced the air on a crisp, sun-soaked Wednesday afternoon at Fort Logan National Cemetery.

In a casket draped in an American flag, fallen warrior Liam Nevins was laid to rest.

“The last time I was in touch with him, he was quite happy,” said his father, Bill. “He was planning a civilian life.”

Nevins was one of three U.S troops killed in Afghanistan on Sept. 21. In an incident still under investigation, a gunman wearing the uniform of the Afghan National Security Forces opened fire on troops during a training exercise in the city of Gardez near the Pakistan border, an area known as a hotbed of insurgent activity.

Staff Sgt. Nevins, 32, served in the 5th Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group with the Colorado National Guard. He was one month from ending his military service and heading to Denver.

Pulled along in an 1867 horse-drawn hearse against the slow drumbeat from a marching band, Nevins received a hero’s farewell. His body was escorted by green berets and friends and family as the procession wound its way to a pavilion by a small lake.

“Liam was the type of soldier and leader the country would be blessed to have,” his father said. “I wish he could have become a general.”

Nevins considered Colorado his home after he left Pennsylvania and visited his sister in Crested Butte at the age of 14. He shipped off to basic training shortly after graduating from high school at 17.

He was one of the youngest members of the Army’s elite Ranger unit, and he always dreamed of serving in the Special Forces. He completed Special Forces Training in August 2011.

Those who knew Liam said he was not only adventurous and “physically capable of almost anything,” but he was also a writer, intellectual and avid reader who loved Bob Marley, and he often expressed concern about the education and welfare of the Afghan people.

“Liam was definitely a scholar,” his father said.

A Special Forces officer who was with Nevins in Afghanistan wrote in an e-mail to The Denver Post that Nevins was recovering from a previous injury suffered during a combat operation when the attack occurred.

“SSG Liam Nevins was a hard charger and a super soldier,” wrote the officer, who asked that his name not be used because of security concerns. “He wasn’t even supposed to be at the range that day, but he voluntarily went out there because he knew there was training going on and work to be done.

“Everyone of us knows the risks involved with what we do, but it can never really prepare us for such a horrendous loss, especially not all at once.”