The Associated Press

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. - A Fort Campbell soldier wounded in Iraq remembered Staff Sgt. Paul C. Mardis as an inspiration at a memorial service Tuesday.

Mardis, 25, died Thursday at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., from injuries sustained in a May 20 explosion near Mosul.

Sgt. 1st Class Donald Kabrich was wounded in the same incident. He visited Mardis in the hospital numerous times.

"But once again, it was Paul doing the inspiring," he said.

Kabrich said the incident "instantly changed" his reality. He said Mardis helped him after the blast.

"It was hugely powerful. It instantly changed our reality," Kabrich said. "I was wounded, and I know Paul was, too, but Paul came to my aid."

Both men, soldiers with the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Campbell, were wounded and taken to Walter Reed.

Mardis is the 63rd soldier from Fort Campbell to die in the war in Iraq. Five of the casualties were Special Forces soldiers and 58 were with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), according to post officials.

A native of Palmetto, Fla., Mardis was remembered Tuesday as a hero but known to his comrades as an "organizational fanatic," said Staff Sgt. Mark Conant.

Conant said Mardis reinvented the filing system for 5th Group's Company B, 3rd Battalion after discovering some old receipts tucked away in a filing cabinet. The receipts were from former "Green Berets," as 5th Group soldiers are known, and dated in the 1980s.

"He organized a bookkeeping system, and Paul would joke that he had an excessive, compulsive disorder," Conant said. "He always had an opinion and a better way of doing things."

Mardis joined the Army on Sept. 2, 1998, as an indirect fire infantryman. He was assigned to the 101st before becoming a Green Beret in 2001.

"For a 24-year-old, Paul got to see a lot. He worked with political parties in Baghdad and with future presidents and vice presidents of Iraq," he said.

Mardis is slated to receive posthumously a second Purple Heart. The decoration first was awarded to him after he was injured last September in Iraq.

"Paul knew the sacrifice," said Capt. Mark Ray, team commander. "What made Paul a true hero is that despite the pain and challenge, he didn't quit."

Mardis is survived by his wife, Kacey, of Clarksville, Tenn., and two sisters.

Instead of flowers, the family has asked that contributions be made to the Paul Mardis Memorial Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 1000, Coshocton, OH 43812.