He was known as "Kenny" and "Gibby" to friends and family, an excitable soldier with an always sunny outlook given to outbursts of emotion.

Sgt. Kenneth Gibson never complained about being in Iraq, or being in the Army, but his wife, Nikki, said he was thinking about getting out sometime after his current deployment.

"That's something that we knocked back and forth a lot together," she said yesterday. "We had made the decision when he was home on (leave in June) — he was pretty adamant about getting out because we wanted to start a family, and he was concerned about future deployments."

An explosion in Iraq last Sunday resulted in a very different course.

Gibson, 25, of Christiansburg, Va., died of wounds suffered in Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad, when an improvised explosive device detonated near him during a foot patrol, the Pentagon said.

Nikki Gibson, 25, who lives here, said she's "hanging in there."

"I've told some people, 'I'm doing,' " she said by phone. "Don't know what it is, exactly, but I'm doing."

Kenny Gibson was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.

Gibson, who was a member of Hawai'i's Stryker brigade, joined the Army in March 2002 and was assigned to Schofield Barracks in August 2002, officials in Hawai'i said.

He had deployed to Kirkuk in northern Iraq in 2004. He and Nikki married about six years ago.

Multi-National Force - Iraq, a U.S. command in the country, said a U.S. soldier and four Iraqis were killed, and others were wounded, during the "complex attack" Sunday in Tarmiyah, a largely Sunni Arab town about 15 miles north of Baghdad.

The attack occurred at about 2 p.m. Iraq time.

After an initial improvised explosive device detonated, a team of soldiers was sent to investigate, the U.S. command said. Shortly after the team arrived, a suicide attack occurred and was followed by small-arms fire.

The attacks also wounded two U.S. soldiers, 15 Iraqi civilians, three Iraqi policemen and three members of the "Sons of Iraq," Sunni Arabs working with U.S. forces to maintain security.

Nikki Gibson said prior to his two weeks of leave, her husband was a "VC," a vehicle commander, in one of the 20-ton Stryker armored vehicles. More than 4,000 Hawai'i Stryker brigade soldiers are deployed to Iraq.

Outside of the Hawai'i soldiers' base, Kenny Gibson spent most of the time inside the Stryker. But after he returned to Iraq for the last seven months of a 15-month deployment, he spent more time on foot patrols, his wife said.

It also exposed the soldier to more danger, but Nikki Gibson said he was happier.

"I think he felt like he was doing more," she said. "When you are in the vehicle, you are just kind of sitting there watching the monitors and looking out."

Photojournalist Nathan Webster, who was embedded with the Hawai'i soldiers, said Gibson was moving civilians to a safer spot when two suicide bombers attacked.

Two other U.S. soldiers were wounded, but Webster quoted battalion commander Lt. Col. Thomas Boccardi as saying they would be OK.

Violence against U.S. troops is down overall in Iraq, and Nikki Gibson said, "Sometimes they (her husband and fellow soldiers) actually got bored because it was just rotations of guard and patrolling. So it seemed repetitive at times to him. But he was doing his duty. He never once said, 'I hate it here.' "

Still, 11 Hawai'i-based soldiers have been killed in Iraq since December, when the Stryker soldiers deployed.

Nikki Gibson said her husband was an extraordinary person who always knew how to make people smile.

When he had free time, he'd always be glued to a PlayStation video game, she said.

"He never wanted anyone to be unhappy," she said. "Basically, he'd do anything in order to make someone happy regardless of whether he knew you for five minutes or if he knew you a lifetime."

A memorial service will be held at Schofield Barracks on Wednesday. Gibson will be buried in Virginia.