Air Force Staff Sgt. David A. Wieger had an impish sense of humor and friends say he would have enjoyed the story told about him yesterday during an otherwise somber, chilly graveside ceremony on a breezy knoll in Penn Lincoln Memorial Park in Westmoreland County.

On his first trip "outside the wire," the secure perimeter of an air base in Balad, Iraq, Sgt. Wieger and fellow airmen visited a nearby community. When children gathered around, he got out of his vehicle to greet them with some basic Arabic phrases. One child responded:

"Hey mister, we speak English."

He was surprised, but quickly responded in the universal language of candy that he dug out of his pockets. The children were as delighted as he was. He later brought them soccer balls, crayons, paper and other items.

Sgt. Wieger, a member of a special Air Force unit gathering combat intelligence in Iraq, was killed Nov. 1 by a roadside bomb while returning to the base. He was 28. The explosion also killed a master sergeant and a civilian employee of the Air Force.

Sgt. Wieger graduated in 1997 from Norwin High School where he played soccer. He studied criminal justice at the Westmoreland County Community College before enlisting in the air force and qualifying for the elite unit. He planned to become a police officer when his current enlistment expired.

His brother, Michael Wieger, said his brother wanted to join the military since high school. "He loved the job he was doing," Michael Wieger said in remarks echoed by many others.

In eulogies delivered to a standing-room-only crowd at the Norwin Christian Church, he was remembered as a man who loved his family and friends, especially their children. Cousin Kathy Kirkwood tearfully recalled how he always made time to visit her children when he was home on leave.

Longtime friend Ken Bryar said he met Sgt. Wieger on a soccer field "when we were little ankle-biters. He made family, not friends. He could light up a room with that wonderful smile and make you laugh with that gotcha grin. He somehow managed to call me from the middle of nowhere on my wedding day."

Air Force Technical Sgt. John Carpenter described Sgt. Wieger as a "git-er-done kind of guy. He had that cool about him, that confidence. He gave 100 percent in everything he did. He tracked down a terrorist who planted a bomb that killed an airman."

Pastor Ed Gratton said the future airman was 4 years old when his parents, Michael J. and Loreen R. Wieger joined the church in 1983. Mr. Gratton praised their son's "courage, self-sacrifice, patriotism, honor, pride, duty, faith in God and love from family and church." He spoke about Sgt. Wieger's "unlived tomorrows" and "unrealized potential."

As the graveside ceremony came to a close, Sgt. Wieger was awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and two commendation medals for his service in Iraq.

Sgt. Wieger was buried with full military honors on the side of a knoll overlooking a row of maple trees. An honor guard carried his coffin to the grave site. The flag atop his coffin was carefully folded and presented to his mother. He received a 21-gun salute. The playing of taps brought tears.