WEAVERVILLE — The family of a National Guardsman and father from Weaverville who was killed in Iraq on March 22 marked his passing at a private ceremony inside an airport hangar last Saturday.

Sgt. Thomas Ray was killed, along with two other soldiers, when a roadside bomb detonated near their vehicle while on patrol in Baghdad on March 22.

The airplane carrying Ray’s body was greeted by an arch of water sprayed by two fire trucks as it landed at the Asheville Regional Airport. His casket was then taken to a Weaverville funeral home in a solemn procession that included law enforcement vehicles and about 60 members of the Patriot Guard Riders on motorcycles.

Ray, 40, had volunteered to leave the 105th Military Police Battalion in Asheville to serve in Iraq with the 1132nd Military Police Company last June because he said he wanted to help save the younger soldiers who were wounded.

The 1132nd unit, which has about 120 soldiers stationed in Baghdad, is scheduled to return this fall.

Ray leaves behind his mother, Ozelle M. Ray; his wife, Linda; and a teenage daughter, Sydney.

Ray previously had served as a medical specialist in the U.S. Navy, starting in 1985, when he convinced his mother to sign an early-enlistment waiver.

He was employeed as a top security officer at Wackenhut, where he was allowed to carry a weapon because of his military background.

Ray enlisted in the National Guard in 2006.

At least 10 other soldiers from Western North Carolina have been killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq since the wars began more than five years ago.

The other soldiers killed along with Ray were Sgt. David Williams, 26, of Tarboro, with the N.C. National Guard and an unnamed member of the New Hampshire National Guard.