Sun Prairie soldier killed in Afghanistan Sandra Selheim holds a photo of her son, Army Spc. Robert Cook, on Friday, near Sun Prairie. Cook was killed Thursday in Afghanistan in an explosion at a weapons cache near Ghazni, his family said. (AP Photo/Wisconsin State Journal, Leah L. Jones) By TODD RICHMOND News-Chronicle MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A 24-year-old Army Ranger who played on a state championship football team and hoped to become a nurse has been killed in Afghanistan. Spc. Robert Cook of Sun Prairie died Thursday, his family said. Seven U.S. soldiers were killed that day in an explosion at a weapons cache near Ghazni, about 90 miles southwest of Kabul, the capital, but family members said the military hasn't confirmed Cook was among them. Department of Defense officials declined to comment. "A leader, a very caring person," was how Cook's mother, Sandra Selheim, described her son. "I was very proud of my son. I told him every time he called. I told him in letters. I told him I loved him every time." Cook was the first Wisconsin solider to die in the U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq since Army Major Christopher Splinter was killed when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb near Samarra, Iraq, on Christmas Eve. Cook graduated from Sun Prairie High School in 1997. He played defensive end for the Cardinals' football team. Selheim said one of her fondest memories of her son was watching him play at Camp Randall Stadium when the Cardinals beat Kenosha Tremper, 13-7, to capture the 1995 Division I state championship. Snow started to fall in the second half, she recalled, but that didn't slow down the Cardinals. "The more it snowed the more they scored, as if to say 'Mom, you can't stop us from sliding outside,'" she said. "He was a sophomore that year. "How proud I was." Amy Esser, 26, one of Cook's best friends from high school, remembered Cook as quick-witted and always ready with a joke. "You couldn't really be mad at him or be angry at him because he would say something and make everybody laugh," she said. "He was the friendliest person you would ever meet." Cook worked some carpentry jobs after graduation, his mother said. He enlisted in the Army when he was 20. He was having trouble finding work and had just broken up with a girlfriend, she said. He had two uncles who served in the Air Force and the Navy, but he didn't tell anyone he planned to sign up until he'd done it, said his sister, Jennifer, 26. She said she was upset when she heard the news, because "I didn't want this to happen." Esser said he was training to become a medic when he deployed to Afghanistan in August. He hoped to become a nurse when he got out of the serve, she said. Cook's family didn't know what he was doing or where he was in Afghanistan. It was all classified, his mother said. "There were trees and mountains and that was all he said," she said. But she said she could tell he was growing homesick. Then, about 9 p.m Thursday, an Army car pulled up to her home. "It's not easy to take, to see strangers drive in and tell you that," said Cook's grandmother, Wanda Barden Williams. "He would always give me a hug when he saw me. I know what it's like to lose older people, but a grandson, it's just almost unbelievable." Esser said she's tired of what she called President Bush's personal vendettas in the Middle East. "I think we've bit off more than we can chew as a country," she said. ___ On the Net: DOD: http://www.defenselink.mil/