Roanoke Times -- A Marine who once lived in Bedford County died Tuesday in an explosion in Iraq.

Gunnery Sgt. Justin R. Martone, 31, was killed when a bomb detonated in Iraq's Al Anbar province, the U.S. Marines said. Martone, a member of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force based in Okinawa, Japan, had been in Iraq since early February, according to his father, Agostine Martone.

Martone was riding in the passenger seat of a military vehicle returning from a mission when a roadside bomb went off, killing him instantly, his father said. The other passengers in the vehicle were injured but Martone was the only one killed, his father said.

"My son didn't know what hit him," he said.

Justin Martone played football at Staunton River High School when the family lived in Goodview, his father said. After graduating from high school in 1993, Justin Martone fulfilled a lifelong dream and immediately enlisted in the Marine Corps, his father said. The family moved to Arizona and Justin, who was awaiting his orders from the Marines, followed.

His recruiter offered to send him to California for training but Justin Martone refused and insisted on going to Parris Island, S.C., "the biggest and hardest base to go to," his father said.

"He said, 'I go there or I won't join the Marines,' " the elder Martone recalled. "He was a very determined young man."

His Marine career took him to Iraq in 2003 when he was among the first Marines to reach Baghdad. His second stint in the country was supposed to last six months, his father said. He was in charge of seven Marines.

"He said, 'I'll see you then.' He said, 'I'll call you.' He didn't give us a certain time but down the road he was going to give us a call."

That was the last time Agostine Martone spoke to his son.

"He was one of the hardest-working Marines they'd had in a long time," Martone said. "Whatever he wanted he always achieved."

Justin Martone's wife lives in Okinawa. The couple had no children.

"My wife's spoken to her a couple times" since he died, said his father. "She was pretty shook up."

Justin Martone is survived by a brother, who works as a firefighter for the Forest Service in Arizona.

"He and his brother got really close," the elder Martone said. "You couldn't ask for a better two brothers."

During Justin Martone's high school days, his father recalled, his football coach told him to put on some weight to play linebacker. Then, when he signed up for the military, he was told he needed to drop the weight.

As a teenager he had a motorcycle, which he loved, Martone said.

When he grew up, his love of riding turned into a love of flying and he got his pilot's license.

"When he got out of the service him and his wife were planning on buying him a plane," his father said.

Martone was a member of a small, elite team of Marines whose job was to dismantle explosives. He was trained to defuse homemade bombs and, in 2004, took part in a demonstration for local public safety officials at the Marine base in Quantico, according to a Marines news release.

Justin Martone is one of at least 28 people with ties to Southwest Virginia who have died in Iraq since the start of the war.

His father said the Marines plan to hold a memorial service for his son at Quantico.

A plane carrying his remains was set to land at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware at 11 p.m. Thursday night.

News researcher Belinda Harris and staff writer Jay Conley contributed to this report.