---

REHOBOTH - A 28-year-old local soldier is making a slow recovery from wounds he suffered in a roadside bombing in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Army Pfc. Matthew Canuel is recovering following treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., for a broken leg and two broken vertebrae in his back, said his father Mark Canuel.

Canuel, a combat engineer, was one of six soldiers seriously hurt Sept. 17 when the armored vehicle in which they were riding was hit by a 2,000-pound improvised explosive device.

The driver of the vehicle was killed.

Canuel had been in Afghanistan about a month when the explosion occurred. The 2000 Mansfield High School graduate joined the Army about two years ago.

"The last few weeks have been tough," Mark Canuel said. "He's been in a lot of pain."

Canuel and his wife, Donna, visited their son at a military hospital in Germany before his return to the United States. Donna Canuel is currently with her son in Washington.

Canuel is based at Fort Drum, N.Y.

The Rehoboth soldier was riding in one of the Army's giant Buffalo armored trucks towing a Humvee when the huge bomb exploded, Mark Canuel said.

The force threw the 45,000-pound, six-wheeled vehicle 50 feet in the air and flipped it on its roof.

The Buffalo is a specialized, heavily armored vehicle equipped with a mechanical arm used in clearing mines.

Canuel said his son's commanding officer called the explosion the largest roadside bomb encountered by U.S. forces to date.