Roberge graduated from Leominster High School's Center for Technical Education in 2005. As a class project, students were required to rebuild a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro. For his senior project, Roberge built a replica V-8 engine. "He got involved hands-on," said Paul Bagley, an automotive instructor at the school. "He was a happy kid, one of the ones who was always kind of joking around, smiling and laughing." Roberge, who was the first from Leominster to die in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was killed by a suicide car bomber near Mosul, Iraq, on Feb. 9, 2009. He leaves his parents, two younger sisters, and a younger brother.