FORT RILEY, Kan. -- The Defense Department has confirmed the death of a soldier in Iraq one day after his wife gave birth to their first child, a son.

Spc. Joshua Reeves died Saturday when an improvised bomb exploded as the Humvee he was in traveled a street in Baghdad.

His wife, Leslie Reeves, had returned to Hendersonville, Tn., to be with her parents while she had the baby. She gave birth on Friday and named her son Joshua Jackson Reeves. Both mother and child are doing fine, according to friends of the family.

“A tremendous joy came into the family and then all of a sudden we got the sad news,” said family friend Lynn Joyner. “No family would love to have a baby born and then have the father or the mother taken away from them. We don't know why.”

The soldier's parents also were told on Saturday of the death of the oldest of their five children. James and Jean Reeves live in Watkinsville, Georgia, about 60 miles east of Atlanta.

The family says Joshua Reeves was scheduled to come home on two weeks' leave in November.

He was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division, based at Fort Riley, Kan.

Reeves’ father also served in the Army.

Sunday, James Reeves wrote a letter to President Bush. "Please do not let anyone leave Baghdad until the mission is complete,” the letter said. “The lives of our young men will be wasted. Please do not let this be another Vietnam."