Seattle Post -- As a young soldier in the late 1990s, Tracy Melvin served with the Army's "Old Guard" at Arlington National Cemetery, rendering the nation's finest honors to its most distinguished veterans.

In December 1998, he was a pallbearer for the funeral of John Henry Stanford, the retired Army general who led Seattle schools and died of leukemia.

Next week, Melvin, 31, of Seattle, an Army staff sergeant, will himself be laid to rest with other soldiers rendering military honors at the Northwest's hallowed ground, Tahoma National Cemetery near Kent.

Melvin, on his second tour of duty in Iraq, was killed Sunday, along with two other soldiers, when a roadside bomb blew up near their armored Humvee during combat operations in Ar Ramadi, Iraq.

Melvin was the 126th member of the armed forces with strong ties to Washington state to die in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

He left behind a wife of one year, Mary, of Arizona. One of her three children is also a soldier who was stationed with Melvin in Iraq, and he will escort Melvin's body home, said Melvin's father, Bill Swindle of South Seattle.

"Tracy started with the Old Guard, and now he's going out with the Old Guard, in a way," Melvin's father, a Navy veteran, said Friday.

"At least Mary's oldest son wasn't with him in the Humvee."

Melvin was one of four children of Bill and Janice Swindle.

"The Army was his life. He was on his third enlistment and said he would 're-up' and go as long as he could," Swindle said.

"His goal from the time he was 10 or 12 years old was to be a soldier. His brother was in the Marine Corps. I was a Navy man, 10 years active, 18 Reserve," Swindle said.

Melvin was born in Auburn and attended Sealth High School, where he played football, and then graduated from a Federal Way alternative school in 1995.

Melvin entered the Army in 1995 and married Sheri Vandemoere on Veterans Day that year, said her mother, Paula Vandeway of Tacoma.

The two went into the Army together. They had two dogs, Kevlar and Akula, that Melvin still asked about.

Though they divorced after seven years and remarried other people, Melvin and Vandemoere remained close to each other's in-laws, Vandeway said. Melvin's ex-wife, now Sheri Washington and a registered nurse, recently completed training in Texas to receive a commission as an officer and plans to attend Melvin's funeral, Vandeway said.

"He is like family to all of us, and I'm just devastated," Vandeway said.

Melvin was assigned to the Army's 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division based in Baumholder, Germany. He served assignments in Egypt and Panama, and at Fort Lewis.

Before that, Melvin served four years with the 3rd United States Infantry Regiment, known more popularly as the Old Guard, at Fort Myer, Va., home of Arlington National Cemetery.

The unit is not only responsible for solemn, spit-and-polish services and ceremonies, including perpetually guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, but also for combat readiness in defense of Washington, D.C.

Melvin was home on leave from Iraq two months ago. His parents were hoping to meet his wife, Mary, for the first time later this year after he returned home from his latest deployment to Iraq. They have been in touch by phone.

"She has two other children in school and has been broken up but has family with her," Swindle said. "We want to meet her even more now."

Funeral services are being planned through Yarington Funeral Home in White Center for next Friday.

"We're now waiting for his casket to bring him home," Swindle said.