( CNN ) -- Troops in white gloves and camouflage carried a pair of flag-draped caskets off an Air Force transport in Delaware Monday as the bodies of two senior U.S. military officers killed inside Afghanistan 's interior ministry arrived home . Air Force Lt. Col. John Loftis and Army Maj. Robert Marchanti II were gunned down Friday when an Afghan intelligence officer turned his gun on them inside the ministry , an Afghan counter-terrorism official told CNN . Loftis was a career Air Force officer , while Marchanti was a veteran of Maryland 's National Guard . The jet carrying their remains landed Monday afternoon at Dover Air Force Base . Marchanti taught physical education in Baltimore County schools for 17 years before resigning to become a full-time , active-duty guardsman . His last assignment was at Carney Elementary , in Baltimore 's northeastern suburbs , where kindergarten teacher Beth Avil described him as a `` gentle giant . '' `` He was this big , burly guy , and here he was making these connections with these little tiny kindergarteners , '' she said . `` You might think they 'd be intimidated , but they had this instant bond . '' Marchanti `` loved to work with struggling learners , '' tutoring them on reading skills in the school 's computer lab , Avil said . `` We had a little celebration for him before he left , '' she said . `` We had all the kindergarteners in one of the classrooms and made a book for him of him working with all the children in the computer labs , and we had them all saluting . And he just about lost it -- he had tears in his eyes . '' When he left , Avil said , Marchanti told them not to worry -- he was going to a desk job . He worked as a construction planning officer in Baltimore , overseeing renovations of National Guard facilities , said Lt. Col. Charles Kohler , a National Guard spokesman . Marchanti was deployed to Afghanistan in September with a unit attached to the Army 's 29th Infantry Division , serving as a `` mentor and adviser '' to Afghan national police officers , Kohler said . Both men were fathers -- the 48-year-old Marchanti had four children and a grandchild , while Loftis had two daughters , the Air Force said . Loftis , meanwhile , was part of an Air Force special operations unit and had already served one tour in Afghanistan . He was killed just days after his 44th birthday , his mother , Chris Janne , told CNN affilliate WPSD in Paducah , Kentucky . `` He lived more in 44 years than most of us will live in 80 , '' Janne said . Loftis began his Air Force career as a missile officer . But he changed specialties in 2007 , receiving training in Pashto -- one of Afghanistan 's two major languages -- and went to Afghanistan as a public affairs officer with a NATO provincial reconstruction team , the service said . In 2009 , then-Maj. Loftis was featured in a story by the Air Force News Service , which noted that he had been given the Pashto name `` Esan '' -- meaning `` The Quality of Being Generous . '' He had been based at Hurlburt Field , near Fort Walton , Florida , before his last deployment . `` He was very much committed to what he was doing in Afghanistan , '' his mother said . `` He felt that the way to help the people there was to become their friends , and he trusted them . '' Loftis and Marchanti were killed in a spasm of violence that followed the burning of copies of the Quran , the Islamic holy book , in what U.S. President Barack Obama has called an accident . The Afghan official , who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information , said investigators believe their deaths were `` 100 % linked to the Quran burning '' because their killer had spent two months in a Pakistani religious school . The slayings resulted in orders from the NATO command in Afghanistan to pull allied advisers from government agencies in Kabul , raising questions about U.S. plans to rely on small teams of advisers as it draws down its force after a decade at war .
Lt. Col. John Loftis and Maj. Robert Marchanti II were killed Friday . They were killed in the spasm of violence that has wracked Afghanistan for a week . Marchanti was a `` gentle giant '' who taught in Maryland schools , a colleague said . The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on their website.