When Army Spc. Christopher Simpson phoned home on Sunday from Iraq, Scott Simpson was nearly too busy to take his son's call and almost asked him to call back.

It turned out to be their last conversation.

Simpson, 23, and another soldier were killed Monday when their convoy was hit with a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

Simpson had returned to Iraq in December for his second combat tour in three years. He was based at Fort Carson, Colo., with the 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division.

"I'm so glad I took that call," Scott Simpson told The Post-Standard of Syracuse. "He's a kid a parent dreams about. I knew the military was going to be a good thing for him. I have no regrets."

Scott Simpson, of Memphis, N.Y., is a first sergeant with the Air National Guard and was in a meeting Sunday at the Mattydale base when his son called.

The younger Simpson attended Jordan-Elbridge schools until ninth grade, then attended schools in Rome, where his mother lived. His mother, Mary Catherine McLaughlin, now lives in Hampton, Va., Scott Simpson said.

Scott Simpson said he remembered taking his son to Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome when he was younger and watching him sit in the cockpit of an A-10 attack jet. But when Christopher joined the armed forces, he decided he didn't want to follow his father into the Air Force.

"He wanted to drive a tank or something more in the thick of things," Scott Simpson said. "He was proud of what he did. He wanted to do something different."

Simpson's 21-year-old brother Richard is in the Marines, the father said.

Scott Simpson said a military funeral would be held in about a week.