4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, 172nd

Died: Nov. 12, 2005, Al Qadisiyah, Iraq, age: 33

He wasn't an "A" student at Clearview Regional High School in Mullica Hill, N.J., but he put all his effort into every endeavor. Like football, for example. After his 1992 graduation, his uniform number was retired after a stellar career.

Sutherland also had a penchant for being in the right place at the right time. While at Boy Scouts camp, he saved a young boy from drowning after his boat capsized. He has also saved his former brother-in-law, who, while the family was on vacation, broke his neck and fell in a lake.

In 1998, he decided to join the Army. While in the service, he met his future wife, Maria. Since she was Catholic, he converted from Lutheranism to keep the family more stable. They got a marriage license and Stephen adopted Maria's two sons. Several years later, they had a wedding ceremony to celebrate their union publicly.

That stability took a hit in August 2005 when Stephen was deployed to Iraq. There, he patrolled in a military Stryker vehicle in which one lieutenant drives and the other rides shotgun. That co-pilot is supposed to pull the vehicle's gunner from his vulnerable position down into the vehicle's better-protected turret if he senses an imminent attack.

On Nov. 12, 2005, Stephen was killed when his vehicle flipped over on one of those patrols. Shirley, who will receive the Army's official report next month, thinks he wasn't pulled into the turret in time.

Shirley knows that Stephen "believes they were doing good," and she considers American soldiers "heroes fighting for freedom."

"It's a possibility that he knew [he was going to die] when he left," she says. "That's why he wanted his wedding before he left, just in case."

But Shirley "wasn't at all thrilled that he made it a career. As a mother, you always fear the worst and this time, the worst happened."