NORTH BERWICK – An Army National Guard soldier from Maine was killed in an explosion in Iraq when his vehicle ran over a roadside bomb, officials said Wednesday.

Specialist E-4 Jeremiah Holmes, 27, a member of the New Hampshire Army National Guard 744th Transportation Company from North Berwick, was killed Tuesday while driving a truck in Ramadi, west of Baghdad.

Holmes was in a convoy when the bomb detonated, knocking the tractor-trailer he was traveling in off a bridge, New Hampshire Gov. Craig Benson’s office said in a news release.

The military notified family members of his death early Tuesday afternoon.

The 744th Transportation Company has 150 members and is headquartered in Hillsboro, N.H., with detachments in Claremont and Somersworth, N.H.

The unit was deployed for training in late December 2003, and sent to Iraq in February for 18 months to support Operation Iraqi Freedom. Two other members of the unit were wounded in a similar incident about a week before Holmes was killed.

During the departure ceremony two weeks before Christmas, Holmes’ wife, Kimberly, held their then 8-month-old son, Kaleb. When asked how she felt about his deployment, she told the reporter, “Not good. I feel bad for the baby.”

Holmes, a 1994 graduate of Noble High School, was no stranger to tragedy. He was 13 when his mother, Sheila Holmes, 31, of Barrington, N.H., was murdered in Dover, N.H., in 1990.

Her death broke up the family, he said, and Holmes was raised by his grandparents in North Berwick. His four brothers and sisters went to two other families.

Holmes never gave up hope that his mother’s killer would be prosecuted.

“I’d like to see a little bit of closure for us,” he said two years ago. “You’re not going to forget about your mother, you’re not going to forget about your sister. You’re not going to forget the 12 years or how many other years it takes to find a conviction. Nothing will ever be closed totally.”

Holmes is the sixth soldier with Maine ties to die during the Iraq conflict.

The others were Maj. Jay Aubin, a Marine helicopter pilot, who grew up in Skowhegan; Marine Cpl. Brian Kennedy, whose mother lives in St. George; Army Sgt. Daniel Cunningham of Lewiston; Marine Lance Cpl. Cedric Bruns, whose grandparents live in Bangor; and First Sgt. Christopher Coffin of Kennebunk.

Aubin was among the first to die when the helicopter he was piloting crashed in Kuwait a year ago, killing 12 U.S. and British Marines. One of those aboard the helicopter was Kennedy.

Cunningham died last April when the vehicle he was riding in fell into a ravine, and Bruns died a month later in a collision.