Pfc. Ernest Harold Sutphin

Ernest Sutphin relished playing practical jokes on friends and family. "We''d switch yards on people," his friend Jim Vaughn said of their school days. "We''d take everything from one yard and move it down one house." Pfc. Sutphin, 21, of Parkerburg, W.Va., and stationed in Hawaii, died March 18, one week after the Humvee he was riding in was struck by a homemade bomb in Kirkuk, Iraq. His mother and father were at the hospital with him when he died. The fan of "Star Wars" and comic books joined the Army to get an education and see the world, said his aunt, Faye Pennell. "He wanted to make something of his life," Faye Pennell said. "He wanted a career." He hoped to earn money for college, where he planned to major in either psychiatry or law, she said. Though Sutphin grew up in Parkerburg, his family later relocated to North Carolina. "He was such a wonderful role model," Pennell said. "All his cousins and his sister looked up to him."