PICAYUNE — Army Staff Sgt. Jerry Clark Burge Jr. was a soldier like few others, the men who served with him said Thursday during his funeral.

Decorated with dozens of medals, he’d served on dangerous missions long before the Iraq war began and knew what it took to protect his men from harm. He took the extra steps to make sure everyone in his command was on the mark all the time.

“When you make it another day without any lives lost, it forces you to see the reasons why,” Sgt. Solomon Mason said. “That leadership helped get men back inside the wire at the end of the day.”

Burge, 39, and another soldier were killed when a roadside bomb ripped apart their Humvee in Taji, Iraq, on April 4.

He was a demolitions expert and engineer with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division based at Fort Hood, Texas.

Burge joined the military in 1985 and began serving full-time active duty in 1995. He had spent eight of his 11 years overseas

His family was given five medals awarded to him posthumously Thursday.

A Bronze Star, a third Purple Heart, a third Army Commendation Medal, a Global War on Terrorism medal and an Expeditionary Global War on Terrorism medal brought his total to about 40 medals, said Staff Sgt. Scott Bradley, who served with Burge in Iraq.

Burge was also injured by an explosion while serving in Kosovo.

The father of three was on his second tour of duty in Iraq when he was killed.

Burge’s girlfriend, Deadra Jarrett, and aunt, Bobbie Kennedy, said when he was home on leave he was always anxious to get back to the front because he worried over his men. Fellow soldiers said Burge made sure his men were doing their duties to the best of their abilities for the good of all.

“He saved a lot of lives,” Mason said.

Burge is the second soldier from Picayune, a town of about 10,800, to die in Iraq.

Army Staff Sgt. Clint D. Ferrin, 31, was killed in March 2004 with three other soldiers when their Humvee hit a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

They are among at least 53 soldiers and Marines with strong Mississippi ties who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to an unofficial Associated Press count.