Military City -- TONAWANDA, N.Y. — A 20-year-old soldier who was looking forward to the birth of his daughter was killed in a non-combat explosion in Iraq.

Army Pfc. Dwane A. Covert Jr. of the Town of Tonawanda joined the Army in 2006 and shipped out to Iraq in October of that year. He was assigned to the 104th Transportation Company, 13th Corps, Support Sustainment Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division in Fort Benning, Ga.

Covert died Saturday in Al-Sahra, Iraq when a cylindrical object he picked up while cleaning up around the base exploded, his mother, Teresa Covert, said.

He was the father of a 22-month-old son and was expecting a daughter in December. He had already named the baby Zoe. He and his wife Jeanette were married in March.

“He was held back from going out on another mission, because he was due back home for the birth of his baby,” Teresa Covert said.

She said her son picked up what appeared to be a caulk gun and was hitting it against a building to knock some dirt off when it exploded.

“Dwane loved his wife and baby. He was so excited about having a baby girl,” the mother said.

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Photo: Jeanette Covert wipes tears from her eyes during the ceremony to dedicate the Military Entrance Processing Station Ceremony Room to her late husband Private First Class Dwane A. Covert, Jr., Friday at the Niagara Falls Airforce Reserve station.

Photo: First Sergeant Lee Thomas, left, and Caption Laurissa Elliott reveal the permanent plaque, Friday, featuring Private First Class Dwane A. Covert, Jr. that will hang in the Ceremony Room at the Military Entrance Processing Station at the Niagara Falls Airforce Reserve station.

The Tonawanda News --In not much more than the space of a year, he became a father, married, joined the military and paid the ultimate price.

A Town of Tonawanda man who was killed in 2007 serving with the Army in Iraq was honored Friday.

Dwane A. Covert Jr., father of two, Kenmore East graduate, was killed at the age of 20 in a non-combat explosion.

A room at the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, where thousands of recruits for every branch of the U.S. Armed Forces are sworn in, now permanently houses his image behind glass. It was dedicated to his memory Friday by a list of local dignitaries and military officials, with scores of friends and family looking on.

“He’s the first young man who paid the ultimate sacrifice who was sworn in in that room,” Lt. Commander Aquilla J. Causey, in charge of Buffalo’s Military Entrance Processing Station, said.

The building was constructed in 2006.

Covert’s wife Jeanette, 21, witnessed the dedication, joined by his family and three members of her husband’s unit, who traveled here from Fort Benning, Ga., where they are now stationed.

“It didn’t matter what kind of a day you had, you left that conversation (with him) with a smile on your face — he was a spirit lifter,” said William Jazwinski of Westchester County, N.Y.

He along with Billy Mull of Longview, Texas and Daniel Baeta of San Jose, Calif., made the trip, staying with Jeanette while in the area. All had lived at Ft. Benning shortly before Covert was deployed.

In Iraq, Baeta was with Covert when a dropped bomb that hadn’t exploded suddenly did. Behind his rock-solid military conduct Friday, as he revisited the scene in his mind, his voice quavered almost imperceptibly.

“He was a goofball,” he said fondly, trying to sum up his relationship with his friend in a word.

“Obviously (it’s hard) when every day I see our two kids running around,” Jeanette said, explaining that Friday’s event was nice, but also has a way of reopening a wound. “But there are things that bring a lot of people together — and I’ve made new friends through it. I’m even closer to the three guys who came up out of his unit who are staying at my house —It’s like I have a new family.”

But raising two kids alone — Cameron, 3, and Zoe,1, — requires help. Help she said she gets periodically from Dwane’s parents, his two younger cousins, a friend, an Army casualty assistance officer and even her late husband’s recruiter.

“Dwane’s parents help out a lot. If I’m having a bad day or Cameron won’t go to sleep at night, I can get a little break,” she said.

Their mutual friend, Jennifer, a long-time acquaintance of Dwane’s also pitches in.

“Dwane grew up around her. He was always there for her. I guess you could say she’s returning that favor and anything I need, she comes running.”

Some things cannot be helped, though, like the feeling of loneliness which results from being in such a different kind of grief than many others. Jeanette mentioned she personally knew of only one other area soldier who was killed around the time of Dwane’s death, leaving behind a wife and kids.

“I never got to meet her so there’s really nobody I have who knows what I’m going through, which doesn’t make it easy ... You don’t have anybody who says ‘I know exactly what you feel,’ and that makes it tough to figure things out sometimes.”

During a procession of speakers prior to the dedication, amid throngs of media people and others including Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, Town of Tonawanda Supervisor Anthony Caruana quoted Ronald Reagan’s 1985 speech at Arlington National Cemetery:

“ ... they gave up two lives. The one they were living and the one they would have lived,” he quoted the former president as saying.

Caruana is a retired Army brigadier general and president of the Western New York chapter of the Military Officers Association of America.

“I think it’s just a huge honor,” Jeanette said of the event. “Obviously people get sworn into the military every day — but it’s amazing that they did that for him. I’m glad me and the kids were there.”

Covert’s awards include the Bronze Star, Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terror Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Army Overseas Ribbon, and posthumously, the Conspicuous Service Cross.

He died as a truck driver during Operation Iraqi Freedom.