Seattle PI -- The letters that 25-year-old Sgt. Gabriel G. DeRoo wrote home in longhand, and the flowers he habitually sent his wife, were still arriving at their Tacoma home Tuesday, two days after he was killed in action in Iraq.

"He always sent gifts home and flowers to honor his family and wife while he was away," said the Rev. Mark Suko of Discovery Baptist Church in Gig Harbor.

DeRoo, his wife, Hannah, and their son, Gabriel, regularly attended the church, which held a service for him and other members of the military who departed in June.

"He was a Christian young man of uncommon integrity, character and valor," Suko said. "He was my inspirational prayer partner. And he was my son-in-law as well."

And sometime next week, the pastor will hold a memorial service when the body of his daughter's slain husband returns home.

The Defense Department reported that DeRoo, of Paw Paw, Mich., was fatally wounded by small-arms fire during combat operations in Mosul on Sunday. He served with the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division based at Fort Lewis, known as the nation's first Stryker Brigade developed for modern warfare.

The unit left for its second deployment to Iraq in June. DeRoo, who was assigned to the brigade's 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, served in Iraq during the unit's first deployment from 2003 to 2004.

The Stryker Brigades have been the cornerstone of U.S.-led operations in Mosul in northern Iraq. DeRoo is the first member of a Stryker Brigade to die there since the unit returned in June.

In addition to his wife and son, DeRoo is survived by his parents, David G. and Laura DeRoo, of Paw Paw, Mich., and four sisters, Angel, 28, twins Charity and Chastity, 22, and Patience, 19.

DeRoo graduated in 1999 from Grace Christian School in Watervliet, Mich. He attended community college, and thought for a while of going into law enforcement instead of the Army. He surprised his family, however, when he joined the Army, deciding on his own it was what he was going to do, his older sister, Angel, said.

"He told the family after he signed the papers," she said. "He was very proud of what he did, and once he made the decision, we were as well."

Their dad is a math teacher in a Decatur, Mich., junior high school, where an 8th-grade class in 2004 adopted DeRoo's Stryker unit as pen pals. DeRoo was a huge University of Michigan fan and loved hunting with a best friend, but was most interested in his family and his faith, Angel said.

"He was so good at writing letters. He made an effort to do that. If anybody wrote to him, he would be quick to find time between his two hours of sleep in Iraq to write one back," she said.

DeRoo and his wife, Hannah, married in December 2004 after his Stryker unit returned from its first tour-of-duty to Iraq.

Suko Tuesday night said his daughter "is doing amazingly well. The Army is doing an incredible job of taking care of her and us."

Angel DeRoo said she was unusually anxious about her brother last week.

"I don't know why but I was really worried about him and had a bad dream," she said. She e-mailed him Thursday, conveying her feelings while chatting about their parents' recent 30th anniversary celebration.

A day later she received a response.

"He said that things were very busy and hectic over there, but it was making time go faster, and that he was happy to hear from me and glad things went well" at their parents' anniversary celebration, she recalled.

"And he told me he was praying for me a lot. He wanted to ease my mind," she said.

"That's the way he was. I overheard my dad telling someone today that if you could list all the good qualities you would want in yourself, Gabe would trump anybody. He was that great of a person," Angel DeRoo said.

"He would trump me as well," Suko added Tuesday night.

Suko said DeRoo took time to learn Iraqi words so he could communicate better with the people whom he had come to like, and who liked him, especially the children.

"He was a man of great integrity. He told his family and his troops that if anybody had to die in his company he would prefer that it be him first and not them, because he wanted them to have time to evaluate their life before the Lord," Suko said.

"That is the one thing that sticks in my mind."