Hyrum -- Cpl. Micheal Boyd Alleman was quiet, hardworking and bothered by injustice in the world, his wife and mother said Wednesday at the funeral for the soldier killed in Iraq.

But he also possessed a hilarious sense of humor, recalled his wife, Amy Alleman, who read from her husband's poignant messages home and talked of how the two came to believe it was God's will that he join the U.S. Army.

When Amy's aunt once asked Alleman when he first knew Amy was the one he wanted to marry, Alleman didn't even look up from his book. He just quipped: " 'As soon as her dad's check cleared,' " Amy Alleman told 400 friends, family members and former elementary students gathered for his funeral at Hyrum's 4th LDS Ward Chapel.

"That's my baby," said Amy Alleman. "He always makes me laugh!"

Alleman, 31, was killed on Feb. 23 alongside two other soldiers and their interpreter in a firefight in Iraq's eastern Diyala Province, the first Utah war fatality this year.

He is survived by his wife and two sons, Kennet, 6, and Kai, 4, and the young family lives with his parents in American Fork. He was buried in the Hyrum City Cemetery on Wednesday afternoon.

Susan Alleman said her son was born in Blackfoot, Idaho, and graduated from high school in Georgia. He earned an education degree at Utah State University. He taught two years in Las Vegas, and had been at Nibley Elementary for a year and half when he left to join the Army in January 2008.

"He died in the defense of other people's freedom and our own freedom," said his mother. "He didn't join the Army to become a hero. He became one."

Amy and Micheal Alleman met at Macey's in Logan, where they both worked stocking grocery shelves at night. Once they were married and became parents, Micheal worked two or even three jobs so that his wife could stay home with the boys, his wife said.

Because he worked so hard, people may not have known this about him, she said: "Micheal loves nothing more than his family."

When Michael first proposed that he join the Army, leaving his teaching job and family, the young couple prayed and fasted, Amy Alleman said.

"I could have asked him to stay," she said. Instead, she became convinced by "the burning in my heart ... this was right, the Lord's way. It was not just Mike's choice. It was our choice."

Yet, she said, at some level she knew her husband would lose his life. "I've had a year to know this was a possibility and I think in the back of my mind, I knew it was inevitable."

Her husband, too, understood the gravity of his decision. In a message from Alaska, where he had spent two months last fall, Micheal Alleman told his wife that he feared death not for himself, but because his life didn't belong to just him anymore. It belonged to her and the boys as well.

More than 90 fifth-graders from Nibley Elementary lined Hyrum's Main Street, waving flags, as the funeral procession passed on the way to the cemetery.

"He always just wanted us to have fun and like school," said Jaxon Fillmore, 11.

"He always wanted to be a hero," said Dillon Salazar, 12.