GRESHAM (AP) - Friends say bigger was always better with Army Sgt. Adam Plumondore.

The 6-foot-2 soldier weighed 235 pounds, and he lived as large as he was. He liked to wear wide-brimmed cowboy hats and shoot big guns. He loved the great outdoors and listening to country and western music.

Roughly 500 people turned out at Greater Gresham Baptist Church on Tuesday to mourn the 2001 Gresham High School graduate, who died Feb. 16 in Mosul, Iraq, after an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.

Dozens of photographs of Plumondore, from infancy to adulthood, were projected on a big screen. In one, he appeared as an adult laughing while sitting on the lap of his mother, Elfriede. In another, he was a small boy sitting on his dad, Dan, as they drove the family truck.

U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Michael A. Dunn said Plumondore, assigned to the 24th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, was a respected senior member of a reconnaissance platoon who showed fierce bravery during battle.

Military officials also fondly remembered Plumondore as a "walking uniform violation," often failing to buckle his chin strap or keep his sleeves rolled down.

"I think it's pretty clear the uniform regulations were advisory to him" Dunn said, drawing laughter.

Plumondore's uncle, Alan Birchfield, read a message from a lieutenant colonel in Iraq, describing several heroic actions by Plumondore, including an incident in which he helped rescue injured soldiers from a burning vehicle after it was hit in a suicide car bombing.

Birchfield then presented his late nephew with his own badge from the Wasco County sheriff's office, saying he had dreamed of working with Plumondore one day.

"It may not be as important as his Bronze Star or his Purple Heart, but it means something to me," Birchfield said. "I know it would have meant something to him."

Gov. Ted Kulongoski, one of several speakers, noted that Plumondore died stepping into the shoes of another soldier who was supposed to be on patrol that day.

"No one can replace, and time cannot dim the memory of Adam Plumondore," Kulongoski said. "He's as fixed in our hearts as God is in our prayers."

When dedication leads to the death of a patriot who dreamed of a career as a police officer, the governor added, "then Oregon has lost a valuable, irreplaceable part of its future."