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GREENSBORO — Friends, family and comrades gathered in the Stallings Ballroom on the campus of N.C. A&T on Sunday for a memorial honoring two Army reservists killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan.

Capt. Benjamin Sklaver, 32 , a native of Hamden, Conn., and Pfc. Alan Newton Jr. , 26 , of Asheboro, were remembered with a traditional U.S. Army memorial ceremony.

Two pairs of empty boots were prepared beneath two rifles holding up empty helmets and dog tags. A last roll call was given, with the crowd reflecting on the silence as the soldiers’ names were called and rifle volleys were fired into the air.

In some ways the two members of the 422nd Civil Affair Battalion were very different — but their commanding officers said their devotion to their country and their mission united them.

In civilian life, Sklaver worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and was the founder of a nonprofit charity that brought clean drinking water to the remote Ugandan villages he had seen while deployed in Africa in 2006 and 2007 .

A statement by Maj. Tim Popek , still serving overseas, recounted how Sklaver could have transferred after returning from one long deployment to find his unit up for another — this time in Afghanistan.

“But he chose to stick it out because he knew he was my best team leader,” Popek said in the statement.

Sklaver leaves behind his parents, Gary and Laura Sklaver, and his fiancee, Beth A. Segaloff.

Newton was a younger man, the operation in Afghanistan his first deployment. According to a statement by 1st Sgt. Kent Chicosky , still serving there, Newton fought to remain on the roster for the deployment after a serious knee injury.

Nicknamed “Hubble” for his thick eyeglasses, Newton took cortisone shots and had to have fluid drained from his knee in the field. According to his fellow soldiers, he never complained.

He leaves behind his father, Alan Newton Sr., his mother and stepfather, Joyce and Randy Woodell , his wife, Lisa Newton , and their 2-year-old daughter, Riley Newton .

In a speech to the assembled soldiers and grieving families, Army Chaplain Larry Toney quoted from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address .

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us,” Toney read. “That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”

Contact Joe Killian at 373-7023 or joe.killian@news-record.com