A U.S. Army soldier who grew up in Alleghany County died Monday while on his second tour of duty in Iraq.

Sgt. Shawn Micheal Dunkin, 25, was killed by a roadside bomb southwest of Baghdad, according to his mother, who said she was notified of his death late Monday.

Two other American soldiers were killed and two more were wounded in the attack.

The Defense Department typically releases casualty reports 24 hours after the next of kin are notified, but no information was available Wednesday about Dunkin’s death. A spokesman for the10th Mountain Division based at Ft. Drum, N.Y., was unavailable for comment.

Dunkin was the second U.S. serviceman with ties to Western Virginia to die in Iraq in the past week. Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Todd Morris, 19, of Raphine was killed in combat Feb. 14.

Dunkin was born in Petersburg and moved to Alleghany County as a child. He graduated from Alleghany High School in 1999.

He joined the Army a year later and served his first tour in Iraq in 2004 with the Texas-based 4th Infantry Division.

He enlisted as a tanker in the mechanized unit but soon switched to infantry scout because he wanted to be closer to the action, according to family and friends.

Infantry scouts, who have one of the riskier jobs in the military, conduct reconnaissance patrols. Operating alone or in small groups, they move ahead of their units and try to avoid detection as they relay the enemy’s position to headquarters via radio.

After re-enlisting, Dunkin was an infantry scout with the 10th Mountain Division, which deployed to Iraq in August.

He planned to make the Army his career but told his family last month that he had decided to leave the military when his enlistment ended.

"He said he’d had enough" of combat, said his mother, Darlene Kelly of Portsmouth. "Wouldn’t you with the bullets and the bombs every day?

At least 32 of the 3,142 U.S. troops killed in Iraq and at least four of the nearly 354 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan have ties to Western Virginia. They were among the thousands of local active-duty, reserve and National Guard troops who have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.