MIAMI -- Army Sgt. Joe Polo always wanted to be a soldier and wanted to help Iraq build a democracy, but his mother says he was a patriotic victim of a "senseless war."

Polo, 24, of Opa-locka, died March 29 after an attack with an improvised bomb and small-arms fire, the Defense Department reported Tuesday. It was his second tour of duty in Baghdad.

"The first mission went well," Caridad Guerra said Tuesday. "Of course, I didn't want him to go. I was worried, but it was what he had to do."

She recalled how her son sounded hopeless over the phone on his second tour and told her of "how people would blow up in front of them."

But his desire to be a soldier went all the way back to his youth, when he played with G.I. Joes.

"There was nothing else he wanted to do," Guerra said.

He joined the Junior ROTC and at 16 was calling Army recruiters asking what he needed to do to enlist. He joined the Army and headed for Fort Benning, Ga., in 2002, and served in Korea for a year. In 2005, Polo told his mother he was going to serve in Iraq.

Guerra sent him care packages that included lemon meringue cookies and green tea -- his favorites. But she said the most he ever wanted to be was a father. Polo had a wife and two younger sisters.

Polo was based in Fort Carson, Colo., and assigned to the Army's 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, the military said.