A 24-year-old South Portland native who was killed Sunday while serving in the Army in Iraq enjoyed poetry and was so proud of his military service that he wore his uniform back to South Portland High School to talk to students and teachers, his friends and family said Monday.

Army Sgt. Jason Swiger was the second Mainer - and the second South Portland High graduate - to die in Iraq this month when he and three other soldiers were killed by a suicide bomber in Diyala province, according to family members. Swiger was on his third tour in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg, N.C.

''He's my hero and I will love him forever,'' his wife, Alanna, said Monday in a prepared statement. The couple met during a poetry reading at a coffeehouse in Fayetteville, N.C., and were married last May. They moved in with his wife's parents in Fayetteville, and Swiger began his third tour in Iraq in August.

Swiger was the third Maine serviceman to die this year in Iraq. Of the roughly 3,200 U.S. troops killed since the Iraq war started in 2003, 25 are Maine natives or have ties to the state.

The Army had not officially released information about Swiger's death as of Monday night. Swiger's mother, Valorie Swiger, said she was told by her son's wife and Army officials that her son and four other soldiers had stopped their Humvee as they traveled in a convoy between two military camps, Camp Caldwell and Camp Warhorse. Swiger and a couple of the other soldiers started to hand out candy to children when a motorcyclist approached the group and blew himself up, killing Swiger and three of the others, his mother said.

Valorie Swiger said she heard about an explosion in Iraq while watching the news earlier Sunday, but it was not until her son's wife called her shortly before 6 p.m. that she learned her son was one of those killed. The Army later called her with the news, said Swiger's mother, who was active in a campaign four years ago to display yellow ribbons on South Portland streets in support of soldiers in Iraq.

''He loved what he was doing,'' Valorie Swiger said. ''It was meaningful (to him) because it meant we could be free and his nieces and nephews would not have to be afraid.''

Swiger joined the Army shortly after graduating from South Portland High in 2000. His mother said he had wanted to join the 82nd Airborne Division since he was a boy. His uncle, Carl McAfee, retired from the 82nd Airborne after 23 years of service. Jason Swiger would sit on his uncle's front porch near Fort Bragg and watch paratroopers jumping from the planes, his mother said.

Tall and thin with sandy blond hair, Swiger liked to write, draw and sing, and to work on his beloved Mitsubishi Lancer.

''When he made his sergeant's stripes, he said, 'Gram, you can't argue with me anymore,' '' said his grandmother, Elizabeth Swiger.

Swiger had three sisters and two brothers. He was part of a tight-knit group of high school friends. One of those friends, Ronnie Dahle, signed up for the Army with Swiger.

''We were inseparable,'' Dahle said. ''We went everywhere together.''

Swiger's mother-in-law, Alice Regan, said burial will be in South Portland but details have yet to be worked out.

Students at South Portland High got the news of Swiger's death over the public address system early Monday afternoon. The announcement came less than two weeks after the death of a 2004 South Portland graduate, Marine Lance Cpl. Angel Rosa, 21, who was killed during combat on March 13 in Anbar province in Iraq.

Principal Jeanne Crocker led the school in a moment of silence Monday, just as she had for Rosa. ''There are a thousand students and hundreds of others, and (there was) absolute silence,'' she said.

Swiger was a frequent visitor to the high school after he graduated, Crocker said. Sometimes he would come to reconnect...