Army Sgt. Cody Legg liked to tell his mother that his unit started with eight men and he would bring all eight home.

As it turns out, he didn't make it back to U.S. soil.

His mother, Bunnie Jacquay, received a visit Wednesday from officers she never wanted to see at her Escondido home.

Earlier that day, Legg was shot while trying to save two soldiers who had been attacked by insurgents with grenades and small-arms fire in Sharqat, Iraq. All three servicemen died.

"I don't doubt he'd do it all over again," Jacquay said yesterday of her son, who was 23. She wore a T-shirt with "Army Mom" printed in pink and hearts surrounding the words.

"He's giving me the strength to get through this," Jacquay said. "I'm coming to find out he was an amazing person who had touched so many people."

His father, Dave Legg, said his son was doing what he was proud of.

"He was aware of the danger, but it was not something he talked about," he said.

Perhaps Legg was born to be a soldier. As a boy, he painted his face and ran around in camouflage. He saved his allowance money to buy a camouflage net, which he strung between trees.

In his teens, he received permission to remove a big pine tree on the front lawn and install a flagpole in its place. He never let the flag wear out, always buying a new one to make sure the display looked just right.

The pole is still there today, bearing a flag at half-staff.

Besides his patriotic acts, Legg excelled at sports. He was an outfielder for San Pasqual High School's baseball team, and he earned a letterman jacket in wrestling.

He was the all-American kid next door, said Pam Cowley, who grew up on the same block with Legg.

"He had tons of friends. Everybody liked him," Cowley said.

Legg enlisted in the Army while finishing high school. He served his first tour in Iraq in 2005 and was on his second deployment when he died.

The last time his parents saw him was when he was home on leave in April. While there, he made a large U.S. flag out of plywood and placed it in the backyard. The flag served as the backdrop for his family's interviews with news media yesterday.

"He put five coats of lacquer on it to protect it," Jacquay said.

She said that at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, she felt something was wrong. She scoured the Internet to find news about her son while praying she would not see his name. She went to work, and when she returned home, military officers were waiting.

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