MAKOTI - Ice crystals shone like frozen tears in Makoti and a blinding sun gave off light but no heat to melt them.

Staff Sgt. Keith Smette's funeral was held Tuesday at the school gym, the biggest building in town other than the elevator, where his dad and mom both work.

He was 25 and he had a smile with enough light and heat to melt a glacier.

His was the third funeral for a North Dakota National Guardsman killed in Iraq.

A quiet and somber crowd of 600 filled the town's Quonset-style gym. There was none of the muffled chatter that normally builds in a growing crowd. The gym remained in a grip of silence as people waited and contemplated the boy they knew and the family that now must learn to live without him.

Keith Smette didn't have to be in Iraq. He belonged to a Guard unit that hasn't been deployed. But he volunteered to join the 957th so he could be in a unit with his little brother, Robert.

Tuesday, his brother, dressed in full uniform, was his pallbearer.

As he helped remove and fold the flag that draped the coffin, Robert Smette's neck muscles strained with the effort it cost him to keep his emotions in control.

Their parents, Doug and Charlotte, leaned into each other as they watched the profoundly moving moment in which a living brother performed military honors for his dead brother.

A display of casual photographs by Keith Smette's coffin showed a young man who didn't stand by someone without draping an arm around their shoulder, even a group of children he met in Iraq.

At his funeral, that gesture was repeated often - husbands comforted wives, fathers reached for daughters and friends held friends for long moments.

Keith Smette wasn't there in life, but the goodness and kindness that described him filled the room. He was present in every hug.

Soon after he arrived in Iraq, Keith Smette wrote to his family and said he believed he was helping the world and the people of Iraq.

"I just hope they feel the same way," he wrote. He died in an explosives incident 51 weeks after he enlisted with the 957th.

Keith Smette was a member of country-western singer Toby Keith's fan club.

His hit song, "American Soldier," was the final song in an emotional service.

It wasn't planned that way, but the funeral was held the same day many Americans, including North Dakotans, participated in a peaceful selection of a presidential candidate. International radio newscasters also were reporting that a process is being decided to hold Iraq's first democratic-style election.

In the Makoti gym, Toby Keith's song reminded everyone of the real cost of elections held by free people.

As the song played, some people held each other and swayed to the words: "Oh, and I don't want to die for you, but if dyin's asked of me, I'll bear that cross with honor, 'cause freedom don't come free."

Keith Smette's family knows what freedom costs.

On Memorial Day, when the ice crystals have long since melted in Makoti and the grass is coming on green, they'll bury a young man they treasured beyond value.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511, or lauren@westriv.com.)