FREEDOM - Had things gone as planned, Sgt. Lynn R. Poulin Sr. would have returned home this spring - to his house just down the street from his mother's home, to his wife and children, and to the backyard tinkering for which he was locally famous. But the deadliest single attack on U.S. forces in Iraq shattered those plans Tuesday. Poulin, 47, was killed by an explosion that ripped through a crowded mess hall at a military base in Mosul. He and one other member of the Maine Army National Guard's 133rd Engineer Battalion were among the 22 people who died.

Poulin's wife, Jeannie, learned of her husband's death Tuesday afternoon when an Army chaplain came to her workplace at Crowe Rope Industries in Winslow.

Jeannie Poulin declined to speak Wednesday about her husband's death. The family's only public statement came from her sister, Barbara Worthley, who said Poulin's death in the week before Christmas had devastated her sister.

"She's in shock," Worthley said. "She's basically lost her best friend."

Except for the 11 months he was stationed in Iraq with the 133rd, Poulin lived his entire life on the same stretch of North Palermo Road. His mother, Theresa, still lives in his boyhood home, a log cabin located almost across the street from his mobile home.

Poulin raised two boys, both now in their 20s, and became a father to two stepchildren when he remarried five years ago. He was a welder at Bath Iron Works, but for him, working with metal was more of a way of life than a job, said Dot Waterman, a neighbor who had known him since he was a child.

Poulin's first language was French, and partly for this reason he found formal schooling a struggle, said Waterman. Where Poulin excelled was with welding equipment and a heap of scrap metal, she said.

As the bulldozer and numerous reconfigured trucks surrounding Poulin's mobile home attest, Waterman said her neighbor was an inveterate backyard mechanic who loved to build things out of other people's castoffs.

She recalled Poulin coming up the road for a visit, usually smelling of chain saw oil and cigarettes, sawdust in his hair and a smile on his face. He often wanted someone to share in the excitement of his latest invention, she said, typically "something that simplifies your life when you're hauling logs out of the woods."

Poulin's abilities to make things out of next-to-nothing were well-known in Freedom, population 650. "He was the MacGyver of the neighborhood, that's what he was," Waterman said.

She said she was certain Poulin's fellow soldiers must have appreciated his abilities. "If he was in a truck, you know it had the most armor on it," she said. "You know he would have scrounged every piece of scrap metal."

Poulin served in the Army National Guard for 23 years. He was proud of his service, but he didn't feel the need to live the military lifestyle any more than necessary, according to Waterman. The only time he shaved was for his once-a-month Army drills, she said. If you ever saw him running, it had to be in preparation for his military physical.

He came home for a two-week leave in November, his first time back in Maine since being sent to Iraq in January. His sister-in- law said he was visibly proud of his service. Waterman recalled how he seemed at peace with himself and smiled more than he used to; the Army had fixed his teeth and he was no longer self- conscious about them.

Poulin called home every day he was in Iraq and always reassured his wife not to worry about him, said Worthley, the wife's sister.

His consideration extended to others as well. Before leaving for the Middle East, Poulin visited Five County Credit Union in Bath, where he organized his finances and enjoyed joking with the tellers. He later sent the bank employees 13 small stuffed camels from Iraq. They responded with a 130-pound box of snacks and toys...