ROANOKE, Va. (AP) -- A Virginia man with ties to Hampton Roads was killed this week by a roadside bomb during his second tour of duty in Iraq, his mother said.

Sgt. Shawn M. Dunkin, 25, was killed Monday southwest of Baghdad, said his mother, Darlene Kelly of Portsmouth.

The Department of Defense on Thursday said Dunkin was killed in action along with two other soldiers. The department said Dunkin's listed hometown was Columbia, S.C.

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

He was a cavalry scout noncommissioned officer who enlisted in the Army in January 2001. He completed basic and advanced individual training at Fort Knox in Kentucky and served his first tour in Iraq with the Texas-based 4th Infantry Division.

In October 2005, he was reassigned to the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y.

While Dunkin planned to make the Army his career, he 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, Kelly told The Roanoke Times. "Wouldn't you with the bullets and the bombs every day?"

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.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)