Updated at 1:19 a.m. CDT April 23

NEVADA — An Iowa soldier was among those killed when insurgents attacked a civilian helicopter in Iraq.

Sgt. Robert J. Gore, 23, of Nevada, was a member of the Iowa National Guard’s 186th Military Police Company, in Boone, but was on inactive status as he performed a six-month tour of duty as a security officer for Blackwater USA, Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Gregory Hapgood said.

Gore was among 11 people killed, including six Blackwood employees, when the helicopter they were on was shot down as it flew from Baghdad to Tikrit on Thursday.

Gore was a soldier first and foremost, his grandfather told The Tribune, in Ames, on Friday. “That is what he was, and he just loved it,” said Bill Selby, of Nevada.

“He was just a wonderful kid,” Selby said.

Gore enlisted in the Iowa National Guard in 2000 and was mobilized for the war in Iraq in February 2003. He returned to Iowa in May 2004, Hapgood said.

Gore went to Nevada High School for his freshman year, but transferred to St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy, in Delafield, Wis., where he graduated in 2000. He attended Iowa State before he enlisted, his grandfather said.

Selby said his grandson intended to return to college.

Hapgood said funeral arrangements are pending.

Chris Bertelli, a Blackwater spokesman, said the guards on the helicopter “were simply passengers. They were going to Tikrit to do their jobs.”

The bodies of the men killed in the attack were being transported back to the United States aboard military aircraft, Bertelli said.

At least 18 Blackwater guards have died in Iraq, including four whose slaying and mutilation in Fallujah were captured in graphic news photographs in March 2004.

Blackwater is one of many private security contractors working in Iraq, where thousands of civilians with other companies feed U.S. troops, fuel vehicles and train Iraqi police.