The Cincinnati Post -- When Katelyn Warndorf turned 13 last year, she received a special gift from her big brother, Cpl. Tyler Warndorf, a Marine stationed in Iraq - 13 white roses.

That wasn't all. The roses were delivered to Conner Middle School, where Katelyn was in gym class. Over the intercom, she heard a tape of her brother singing "Happy Birthday" to "Boo," his nickname for her.

After she told the story Wednesday evening, Katelyn cried: Tyler won't be celebrating any more birthdays with her.

The 21-year-old Hebron, Ky., resident died Tuesday in Iraq's Al Anbar Province.

He and four others were killed when a suicide bomber ran a barricade and blew himself up inside the Marines' camp, said his uncle, Warner Allen of Covington.

It was Tyler's third tour of duty in Iraq, and he was scheduled to return home in October.

Four of his close relatives had already served in Iraq and returned safely, with a fifth scheduled for duty there in a few weeks.

Tyler's brother, 18-year-old Nick, said he felt regret more than any other emotion. "Anger's not the proper step to take for the future," he said. "I feel regret that I wasn't there with him, regret that he made the decision that he did and regret that he's not here with us right now."

Tyler enlisted in the Marines in the fall of 2003, a few months after he graduated from Conner. He spent the summer quitting smoking and getting himself in shape, including jogging with his aunt, Dina Brock of Burlington, Ky.

He was determined to do his part, to do as much as he could for his country and his loved ones, his brother said.

In the Marines, he became close friends with a fellow Marine named Brett Weipert, a Michigan resident. Tyler hoped to attend college at Michigan State University when he left the Marines.

Raised in Boone County, Tyler became the leader of his family at age 8, after the death of his father, Christopher Warndorf, in 1994.

He was very mature for his age. "You would have thought he was 40," Brock said.

He became the one who did all the physical labor around the house, Nick said.

"He made sure we got good grades," Katelyn said. "If not, he would give us a talking-to."

During those talks, he would tell her she could do better, that she wasn't trying hard enough, she said.

With a widowed mother who didn't have a college degree, he started working early to help out his family financially.

He got a job at Kroger when he was 15, and used his employee discount to buy the family groceries.

While working at Donato's, he saved $3,000, which he gave his mother, Tina Warndorf, to use as a down payment on a car she needed for work.

"He was very generous with his money," said Tina Warndorf, who lives in Covington.

Even as a teen-ager, he didn't rebel, never even breaking his curfew, his mother said.

"We always carried out honest, open communication - 'This is where I'm going to be,'" she said. "I didn't have to fight about him with his grades."

Family members say Tyler never shied away from showing emotion.

When he was a child, his aunt told him she loved him, and he replied, "Aunt Dee-Dee loves." It became a tradition for him to say that to her even as an adult.

"I said, 'Bud, just because you're going into the Marines and being Mr. Bad Marine, I'll always be your Aunt Dee-Dee, and Aunt Dee-Dee loves," Brock said.

In their phone conversations from Iraq, he would insist that she say it, even when his buddies were around.

When she spoke to him for the last time on Sunday, she told him again, "Aunt Dee-Dee loves," and he burst out laughing.

"It was just a hearty, deep laugh that made you want to laugh back," she said. "That was my last good memory."

As children, Nick and Tyler fought a lot, but they seemed to click after Tyler joined the Marines.

In a long talk together on his last leave, Tyler told him all he had gone through in Iraq, his frustrations and successes.

He said that the only thing that kept him going was knowing that his family was proud of him and approved of what he was doing, Nick said.

"I won't say that Iraq is somewhere we shouldn't be," Nick said. "If anything, we're there for a reason, we're meant to be there.

"I would hate to think, or allow anyone else to think, that his death was in vain," he said. "He came into the world fighting, and he left it fighting just the same and just as hard." Nick comforts himself with the thought that, "It's a good possibility that the hell that we live in now would be - you could think of this as Tyler's release."