Army Sgt. 1st Class Glen Whetten, 31, died in March in Afghanistan when his military vehicle rolled when it was hit by a roadside bomb and he was crushed beneath it.

Staff Sgt. Keoki Suerth, 36, was killed in a motorcycle accident near Fort Drum in New York in 2007.

Pvt. Timothy J. Hutton, meanwhile, was 21 when he died of a bullet wound on a U.S. base in Baghdad in 2008. The Army concluded it was self-inflicted, but his mother said her son was upbeat, had just proposed to his girlfriend, and she believes there was foul play.

Regardless of the circumstances, the loss of a loved one tears a hole in the hearts of family members, and it was the common denominator for 22 families who attended the dedication of a Survivor Outreach Services Center yesterday at Fort Shafter.

The families, all of whom live in Hawaii, placed a photo on the wall at the new SOS center with a message about their soldier.

"I think it’s good because I want my son to remember his dad," said Rachel Suerth, 36, whose husband was killed in the motorcycle accident three years ago.

Her son, 7-year-old Kailer Suerth, wore his father’s dog tags around his neck.

Part of the message, written by Kailer, read: "My Daddy is my best Daddy. I want to be like my Daddy when I grow up. He did karate, hockey and was in the Army. My Daddy liked running and he was fast."

It was good for her son to see the picture of his father with the description of him because "it’s not just a formal picture," Rachel Suerth said. "It shows their personalities."

Lis Olsen, who is the Army Community Service outreach director and also is in charge of the Survivor Outreach Services Center, said 248 active-duty, National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers with Hawaii ties have died or been killed since 2001 — the start of the war in Afghanistan. Her goal is to create photo tributes to them all.

But the center also is a place where families can turn to receive counseling, financial advice, or just spend some time with other families who have experienced the death of a soldier.

"That’s the Army’s goal, that there will be a partnership and then a warm hand-off (to the outreach center) when the casualty assistance officer’s duties are done — so the families will not be forgotten," Olsen said.

Olsen herself lost her son, Spc. Toby Olsen, a Mililani High School graduate, who was killed along with three other soldiers in western Iraq when a roadside bomb hit their Humvee on Jan. 20, 2007.

"The dedication of this new center marks a significant step for the Army in Hawaii," Col. Douglas Mulbury, the commander of U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii, told about 200 people who attended the dedication ceremony.

Mulbury said since late 2008, the Army’s Installation Management Command has been establishing Survivor Outreach Services programs across the nation as well as in Europe and Asia to support the families of soldiers who die while on duty.

The new SOS center at Fort Shafter is in a historic building that had been undergoing renovation for the past two years, officials said.

The center represents an increased emphasis on Survivor Outreach Services, which was established in Hawaii in 2008 and now has a formal home at Fort Shafter.

Sonya Miller, who lost her son, Timothy Hutton, to the suspect gunshot wound in Iraq in 2008, said his death "changed us all."

"Tim was such a great part of our lives," she said. "He was the oldest boy. He was a son, he was a brother, he was a fiance. He was a very vibrant person. He was always laughing and joking around. He was so full of life."

The family moved from Montana to Hawaii shortly after his death, and Sonya remembers a particularly difficult holiday.

"My husband didn’t know what to do with me," she said. "I was breaking down."

He called a chaplain, who called Lis Olsen.

"It was somebody to talk to — to know you weren’t alone," Sonya Miller said. "It (the SOS center) is really evolving into something very special, and I’m very grateful for that. It’s a great support group. I don’t know where I’d be without them."