For one thing, there were the plastic-covered prints hung on his wall - three scenes from the Book of Mormon - the first depicting Helaman, a commander of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lore who led an army of 2,000 warriors into fierce battle and suffered not a single loss.

"Some people told me, 'So you're the new Helaman,' " Miller, a colonel said in September, a time when the predominantly Mormon battalion he leads in Iraq was one of only two in the division that had not lost a soldier. "Maybe there is some symbolism in that that I cling to, but I've started to worry that people are expecting me to bring every one of these soldiers home."

It was, indeed, his dream. But in a place of such nightmares, he knew better than to make it anything else.

On Thursday, a suicide bomber claimed the life of one of Miller's soldiers - not only a subordinate, but also a close friend.

Michael McLaughlin, a lieutenant colonel from Pennsylvania, was one of two U.S. service members killed when the attacker ignited a bomb-laden vest in a crowd of Iraqi police recruits on Thursday morning.

Like everyone else, Miller simply called his friend "Mac."

Alike in their fondness for military history, their demand for perfection, their desire to protect the young soldiers who served under them and their intention to return to wives and families they loved dearly, Miller and McLaughlin were dissimilar in nearly every other way.

Miller is thin, quiet, contemplative. A devout Mormon, he drinks a non-caffeinated hot beverage called Postum instead of coffee. He rarely curses or raises his voice.

Stocky, brash and never at a loss for a swearword, McLaughlin, his comrades sometimes joked, could be heard over a mortar explosion. The Catholic soldier's room in the concrete complex that houses the 222nd Field Artillery's command staff was two doors down from a makeshift coffeeshop officers used to get away from the war. He spent long hours there, often standing right next to the coffee maker, silver travel mug in hand.

"We're different in a whole lot of ways," Miller said of his friend in September. "Sometimes he drives me crazy, but he's got one of the most important jobs in this entire place. And I trust him completely."

The tribal leaders with whom McLaughlin worked - bolstering support for the U.S. cause, negotiating for reductions in violence and gathering intelligence - called him "a sheik among sheiks."

The job was dangerous - the government building where he met his contacts was frequently shelled and occasionally the location of firefights. But McLaughlin seldom seemed content to stay on the base.

"Where else can you be where they offer you wives with one hand and signal for people to kill you with the other?" McLaughlin asked one morning before departing for the weekly meeting he called a "sheik-and-bake."

John Gronski, commander for the 2nd Brigade Combat Team in Ramadi, worked alongside McLaughlin to earn the trust of tribal leaders.

"Mike died doing his job the only way he knew how - out front, with great enthusiasm and courage," Gronski said.

Both humorous and demanding, McLaughlin earned the respect and cooperation of many of the tribal leaders, waiting behind after the meetings for individual sheiks in long black robes to come to him with pieces of information about the insurgency in Ramadi and to make deals for their business projects.

"The sheiks themselves told us to come," police recruit Majid Sayeed told a reporter from Stars and Stripes who was at the Ramadi Glass Factory when the bomber struck.

In a city of 400,000 - where most young men are considered to have some complicity with the insurgency - the sheik's influence had kept recruits safe for three days.

On the forth and final day of the drive, as hundreds of Iraqi men waited to be screened, U.S. troops brought bomb-sniffing dogs out to examine the crowd. One of the dogs, apparently having caught the scent of the explosive vest, attacked the bomber, who detonated a bomb packed with ball bearings, witnesses said.

A Marine dog handler was killed along with two military dogs and as many as 70 police recruits, officers said.

McLaughlin, standing about 20 feet away, was struck in the temple with a piece of shrapnel. Though quickly evacuated to the emergency medical center at nearby Camp Ramadi, the damage was too extensive.

The Salt Lake Tribune was unable to contact Miller after the attack.

Discussing the pressure to walk in Helaman's shoes in September, the soft spoken commander said he prayed, every day, that it could be true.

God, Miller said, "has not told me I'm going to bring every one of these guys home and he hasn't told me I won't, either."

"I know I can't make any guarantees," he said. "I know I'm not a Book of Mormon prophet."

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Reporter Matthew D. LaPlante and photographer Rick Egan spent nearly two months in Iraq with Utah-based military units, including the 222nd Field Artillery, last fall. Much of their Iraq coverage is available at www.sltrib.com/iraq. You may reach them at iraq@sltrib.com.