"I'm proud of my dad, because he didn't really fight for himself, he fought for the country," Connell's teenage daughter, Courtney, told Knoxville's WATE-TV.

In Michigan, students at Maple Valley High School created a memorial for Courneya, who graduated in 2005 and was well-known in the small community southwest of Lansing. He was a member of the school's track and soccer teams and played clarinet in the band.

"It's a tribute of photos, posters, plaques and a picture of him in his uniform," school official Kelly Zank told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Courneya's mother, Wendy Thompson, said her husband, Army Spc. David Thompson, was in Iraq and returning home after learning of his stepson's death.

Also Tuesday, at least 51 people were killed or found dead across the country. They included seven killed in a pair of bombings in Baghdad's Tayaran Square shopping area and four who died when mortar shells struck the Shiite area of Sadr City.

Under a new government policy limiting media coverage of such tragedies, Iraqi police prevented news photographers and cameramen from filming the scene.

The government said the order, announced over the weekend, is aimed at preventing journalists from inadvertently tampering with evidence, protecting the privacy of the wounded and keeping insurgents and militias from keeping track of their success rate.

The ban also prevents pictures which call into question US and Iraqi claims of success in quelling violence in Baghdad.

Elsewhere, five civilians were killed and 41 wounded when dozens of gunmen attacked a village north of the capital, Iraqi authorities said.

A mortar or rocket slammed into the US-controlled Green Zone, wounding five American Embassy contractors, a spokesman said. US Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said there were no deaths and property damage was minimal. He said the contractors' nationalities had "not yet been confirmed."

Fintor said the embassy was "open and functioning normally."

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