RICHMOND – Nancy Kelly said she knew something happened to her husband of 25 years before a chaplain from the Maine National Guard appeared on her doorstep.

“I had this horrible feeling in my chest,” said Kelly, who was awakened from a deep sleep by her premonition. “I just knew something had happened.”

Her husband, Staff Sgt. Dale James Kelly Jr., was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq along with Staff Sgt. David Michael Veverka, 25, a University of Maine student from Jamestown, Pa.

Kelly said she was told that her husband was riding in the lead truck of a three-truck convoy headed toward Mosul when the bomb exploded. The soldiers were members of B Company, 3rd Battalion of the 172nd Infantry regiment based in Brewer.

Another soldier, Pvt. Christopher Fraser, 19, of Windsor, was seriously injured and transferred to medical facilities in Landstuhl, Germany. He was a member of the 1136th Transportation Company and was attached to B Company.

Kelly served in the Guard while working for Bath Iron Works for the past 14 years. Before that, he served with the Rhode Island National Guard’s 143rd Tactical Airlift group.

Soldiers in his battalion referred to Kelly, who was a trained medic, as “Doc Kelly.”

Kelly will be remembered for his selflessness and as an example of how much good one person can do for others, his wife said.

Nancy Kelly recalled an incident two years ago near Rangeley when her husband went to the rescue of a 2-year-old child who fell into a stream. Last year, while rock-climbing with his Guard unit in Camden, Kelly and another soldier treated a civilian who broke his ankle.

On a mission trip to Jamaica, Kelly was

supposed to help build a community center but ended up treating numerous children with serious illnesses instead, she said.

The University of Maine will pay tribute to Veverka during Saturday’s commencement ceremony.

Veverka, who graduated from Jamestown High School in 1998, joined the Army to help pay for college and joined the Maine National Guard while studying for his bachelor’s degree in wildlife ecology, his family said.

Fraser worked in the woods with his father in the area around Windsor before going to Iraq, said his cousin Kayla Fraser.

She said she exchanged instant messages with him from a hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, where she said he is being treated for burns and puncture wounds to his legs. She said he expects to recover fully.

The deaths marked the worst single day for the Maine National Guard in Iraq since December 2004, when a suicide bomber killed two Maine soldiers and injured another 13 from the Guard’s 133rd Engineer Battalion.

Despite the tragedy, Nancy Kelly said her belief in President Bush and the war remained unshaken. Kelly said her husband was in a better place.

“We support President Bush in everything he is doing,” she said. “It’s our obligation, as a world power, to seek out this evil and free the people.”