When Frank T. Carvill told his sister he had been called up to go to Iraq, she was stunned.

“Gee, Frank, are you going to be part of the AARP battalion?” she teased, referring to the retirees lobbying group.

At 51, Carvill, an Army sergeant with the New Jersey National Guard, was among the oldest soldiers to die in Iraq. He was killed last June in an ambush outside Baghdad that also claimed the lives of four other Guard members from New Jersey and Oregon.

Carvill had escaped both terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, where he worked as a paralegal. In 1993, he helped a co-worker down 54 floors to safety. On 9-11, he left the north tower moments before one of the hijacked planes crashed.

He was a devoted big brother to Peggy Liguori, who still remembers how as kids, he took her to see “Blue Hawaii” and “Born Free” at the movies.

Carvill joined the Guard two decades ago out of a sense of patriotism and never regretted it, though he believed the war in Iraq was a political mistake, Rancitelli says.

On the day he was supposed to head home on leave, he gave up his seat on the plane to another soldier who had a family emergency, his sister said..

“My brother’s biggest downfall was never being able to say no,” Liguori says. “He was always willing to help.”