March 19 - The Department of Defense confirmed Friday that a Parkersburg native who joined the Army to get an education and see the world has died. Private first class Ernest Sutphin died Thursday at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, from injuries sustained in a vehicle incident in Kirkuk, Iraq.

The 21-year-old died after his family decided to take him off life support. Sutphin was one of seven soldiers involved in the March 11 accident. He suffered punctured lungs and brain damage when a "home-made" land mine exploded beneath his Humvee on a road near Baghdad.

No other soldier involved in the accident has died. Sutphin was with the Hawaii-based Second Battalion, Eleventh Field Artillery, 25th Infantry Division. Sutphin hoped to earn money for college, where he planned to major in either psychiatry or law. Sutphin, who was single, grew up in Parkersburg and graduated from Parkersburg High School in 2001. His family later relocated to North Carolina, where he planned to live after getting out of the service.