GREENSBORO — A 23-year-old soldier from Greensboro was killed Monday while serving in U.S. Army operations in Iraq, his parents said. SPC David Emanuel Hickman was only weeks away from returning home, they said.

Veronica Hickman said the family was told Monday night by the Army that her son died that morning.

On Tuesday, David Eugene Hickman said he didn’t have all the details, but it seems that an improvised explosive device struck his son’s convoy. The 23-year-old was transported to an Army hospital, but later died.

Hickman, an Army specialist stationed out of Fort Bragg, was a star athlete at Northeast Guilford High School, where he played football and ran track, his parents said. He was an “adventurer,” who also did Taekwondo and rock climbing, Veronica Hickman said.

He played football briefly at Ferrum College in Virginia before he was red-shirted, she said. Her son enlisted in the Army in 2009, going to basic training around Thanksgiving of that year. He deployed to Iraq around Memorial Day this year and last talked to his parents on the phone Sunday.

His friends are planning a candlelight vigil Sunday evening, according to Facebook.

Media representatives from the Department of Defense said they didn’t have any information to release, as of Tuesday afternoon.

SPC Hickman is the 4,483rdd American killed in Iraq … Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden