Army National Guard Sgt. Timothy Kiser, 37, Redding; Killed in Bombing

Last month, Rhonda Kiser received a Mother’s Day card from her husband, Army National Guard Sgt. Timothy Kiser, who had been serving in Iraq since January. And even though Rhonda’s birthday is still several weeks off, he made sure to put her birthday card in the mail.

The card arrived April 28, the same day Army officials told her that Kiser, 37, of Redding, Calif., had been killed in an explosion while driving his Humvee on a road near Kirkuk.

Recently, Rhonda Kiser had noticed that even her fun-loving husband had become alarmed about the escalating violence in Iraq.

“I’m getting scared,” he told her. “It’s getting bad over here.”

It was getting so grim that Kiser had recently called his teenage sons from Iraq, instead of e-mailing them.

Austin, 14, and Jordan, 13, live with Kiser’s former wife, Jennifer Krock, and her husband in Mount Shasta, Calif. Krock could tell as soon as she spoke to Timothy Kiser that he was worried.

“I could tell by the tone of Tim’s voice that he really wanted to make contact with the boys,” she said. He was lucky to find both of them home. (One is usually out playing baseball or running track.) And Austin and Jordan loved speaking to their dad directly, instead of trading electronic messages.

A month or so ago, Kiser survived when his Humvee rode over a cache of bombs, but most failed to explode.

That Humvee was better armored than the one that blew up last week, his widow said: “I am furious about that. The other one took it just fine. Tim said he thought he had a flat tire.”

Kiser, who was assigned to the Army National Guard’s 340th Forward Support Battalion, 40th Infantry Division in Red Bluff, Calif., was on a routine night patrol when he was killed. He had been promoted to sergeant just a few days before.

Kiser planned to make a career of the Army, his widow said.

“He believed 100% in the country he was fighting for,” she said. And even though he didn’t agree with everything the U.S. military did in Iraq, he thought the U.S. had an important humanitarian role to play there.

“He liked to play,” Rhonda Kiser remembered. He loved to do things with his sons and his stepchildren, Danyelle Thompson, 19, and Kyle Thompson, 18. Kiser proudly took Danyelle to father-daughter dances.

“He was rarely serious,” Rhonda Kiser said of her husband. “He was really funny. And he was a teaser. He once antagonized his sister, Shawn, so much when she was going to the police academy that she handcuffed him.”

Born in Cincinnati, Kiser was 5 years old when his family moved to the Bay Area, then to Fremont. He liked camping, and “he and his brother would go to the Delta and go tubing,” Rhonda Kiser said.

Timothy Kiser had spent more than six years in the Army and Army Reserve right after high school. He was a truck driver for much of his civilian life, but he loved the military, his widow said, and he had reenlisted last year in hopes of becoming a medic.

But before he could begin his training, he was sent to Iraq, where his experience as a truck driver put him behind the wheel of a Humvee. The work was dangerous and nerve-wracking. He and his fellow soldiers never knew when the road under them was booby-trapped. The enemy could set off their makeshift bombs with their cellphones.

Kiser’s family is grieving, bracing for the funeral Monday.

“Tim’s best attribute was his sense of humor,” Krock said. His sons loved the side of their father that did impressions and wasn’t afraid to act goofy.

“He was just like them,” Krock said. “He was a big kid.”

In addition to his wife, sons, and stepchildren, Kiser is survived by his mother and stepfather, Jacquie and Ronald Dunn; a brother, James; and two sisters, Shannon Huhn and Shawn Dunn.

A memorial service will be held Monday at the Allen & Dahl Funeral Chapel in Palo Cedro, Calif., followed by burial at Cottonwood Cemetery.