Former Duke swimmer and baseball player Matthew Lynch, 25, a 1st Lt. and member of Pendleton's 2nd Battalion, 5th Regiment, was killed early Sunday by a roadside bomb in Ramadi, a Sunni Muslim area west of Baghdad, Iraq, where U.S. forces have been clashing with insurgents for weeks.

Lynch served with the 1st Marine Division, 1 Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and was serving his third tour of duty in Iraq. He was one of the first Americans deployed to Iraq after President George W. Bush sent troops there in March 2003.

He returned to Camp Pendleton in August, but was sent back in March 2004 with a different battalion to fill in for officers who had been evacuated because of injuries. He returned uninjured in July and volunteered to go to battle for a third time when his original battalion was scheduled to redeploy in Iraq.

Lynch did not have to go back for a third time, but as his brother, Tim Lynch, 27, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, told the New York Daily News, "It's hard to understand if you're not in the military. When it's people you look at as your brothers, it's a pretty easy decision to go back there."

At Duke, Lynch was recruited as a member of the swimming and diving team, where he competed during his freshman, sophomore and senior seasons. He also played baseball his sophomore and junior seasons in 1999 and 2000, respectively.

In the pool, he owned the best time among Duke swimmers in the 200 freestyle as a freshman, when he also posted the second-best time in the 100 freestyle. At the ACC Championships, he had the team's best performance in the 200 individual medley. As a sophomore, he held season time records in the 200 freestyle, 200 individual medley and was part of the 200- and 400-freestyle relay teams that held Duke season time records, as well. After coming back to the swim team his senior year, he came just 22 hundredths of a second away from setting the school record in the 200 individual medley and was also the anchor for the 400- and 800-freestyle relay teams.

"When you're in the swimming program for years, it becomes your family. They become like your kids," Duke head swim coach Bob Thompson said. "It's heartbreaking--this has just rocked our world. He would have been team captain if he had been there his junior year. He was one of our key guys. He was out there every day, so committed. He was kind of the perfect kid. I'm sure he was a good Marine."

Regarded as one of baseball head coach Bill Hillier's favorite and hardest working players on the team, Lynch played in 10 games and started two in 1999, finishing with three hits and two RBI while hitting .273 as a back-up catcher. In 2000, Lynch played in 30 games for the Blue Devils, starting 13 and amassing 13 hits and seven RBI and a .217 batting average.

"Matt was a tough, hardworking young man that represented all that is good about intercollegiate athletics," Duke Director of Athletics Joe Alleva said. "My deepest sympathy goes out to his family."

Lynch enlisted in the Marines shortly after graduating from Duke in 2001. He completed officers training in December 2002 and was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant.