A 25th Infantry Division combat medic died Sunday in Iraq of wounds he suffered when insurgents attacked his Stryker combat vehicle with grenades.

With the latest death, two Schofield Barracks soldiers have been killed in Diyala province in less than a month’s time. Violence has spiked in Iraq with a stalemate in Iraq’s government leadership and as the U.S. continues a troop drawdown.

The Pentagon said Spc. Jamal M. Rhett, 24, of Palmyra, N.J., was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team. He died in Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad.

About 3,800 Schofield Barracks soldiers with the Hawaii Stryker Brigade deployed to northern Iraq in late June. About 60,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, down from a high of about 170,000. The U.S. plans to lower its troop total to 50,000 by Sept. 1.

Schofield soldier 1st Lt. Michael L. Runyan, 24, of Newark, Ohio, died July 21 after his convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in Muqdadiyah.

Family members told the Burlington County Times in New Jersey that Rhett moved to Palmyra with his mother, Michelle Watson, at age 11, and he attended local schools before transferring to the Burlington County Institute of Technology. He graduated from the school in 2003 and spent a year at Bloomfield College before enlisting in the Army.

His aunt, Sonya Winters, described Rhett as a funny and loving nephew who kept in close contact with his extended family via phone and the social network Facebook. She said she last spoke to him Thursday.

"I was speaking to him about a party I was throwing for my 19-year-old, who is going off to college. He congratulated me and told me to give his best to everyone," she said. "Like always, he told me he had to get some sleep, but he said he loved us and would talk to us later."

Winters told the New Jersey Star-Ledger that Rhett wanted to be a doctor and joined the Army after a year of college because he wanted financial help paying for college and medical school.

His body arrived yesterday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team is serving its third tour in Iraq. The U.S. plans to withdraw completely from Iraq by the end of 2011.