Washington Post -- From the time he was a teenage JROTC student at Forest Park High School in Baltimore, Staff Sgt. Jay Martin seemed to be moving toward a career in the Army.

He was athletic, competing on his high school's swim and track teams. He set his sights on college, and for a brief time he attended school in Florida. But he soon enlisted in the Army, said an aunt. He had served for nearly a decade before he died Sunday in Baghdad. He was 29.

An improvised explosive device detonated while his unit was conducting combat operations, the Defense Department announced yesterday morning. He left behind a close-knit and loving family, including a father and four half sisters, said the aunt, Lori Martin-Graham. His mother died when he was child.

"We've been crying and praying. God took one of the best," she said. "I helped to raise him. He's my angel. "

Martin, a recruiter in recent years, decided he needed to go to Iraq to experience battle firsthand, Martin-Graham said.

"He wanted to do whatever it took," she said. "Before he left, we said, 'It's bad over there,' but he was eager to go."

Martin was deployed in October and was scheduled to come home on leave this spring but swapped times to allow a buddy to return first to see his newborn, Martin-Graham said.

Martin stayed in touch with his family for the most part through e-mails, but the messages were scarce in the months he was moving from place to place, doing what he described as reconnaissance work, said his aunt, who would send him cookies and family pictures. In their last correspondence, he promised to send her some pictures he had taken in Iraq, but they never arrived.

"When they bring his body back, I hope that film is with him," she said.

The explosion claimed the lives of two other soldiers from Martin's Fort Colorado-based unit. More than 100 U.S. troops died in April, making it the deadliest month this year for U.S. forces in Iraq.

"We want to express our condolences to those other families and let those families know we know how they feel," Martin-Graham said. "We just want this war to end and for the troops to come home, so other parents don't have to go through this."