By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS - Amy Poorman and her cousin Buddy, just eight months apart, were so close growing up that people called them twins.

"We were the twins of trouble," Poorman said with a laugh. "My grandmother said, 'What one of us didn't think of, the other did.' "

Poorman, 28, of Warsaw, came to Columbus Friday to honor her cousin, Staff Sgt. Lester O. Kinney, killed by a roadside bomb west of Baghdad in January just two weeks after arriving in Iraq.

Fourteen months into the nation's second war with Iraq, Gov. Bob Taft honored Ohio soldiers killed in the conflict at the state's annual Memorial Day wreath-laying ceremony.

Kinney II, 27, of Zanesville, was a paratrooper with the 2nd Battalion of the 505th Infantry.

Poorman has a tattoo with her cousin's nickname on her right shoulder and on Friday wore colored twine in her hair in honor of Kinney.

"We did everything we could to be different, everything we could to stand out," said Poorman, who runs her own decorative candle business. "With him it was Spiderman and big cowboy hats, with me it was flashy hair and flashy clothes."

Before the ceremony, Taft met privately with family members of 18 soldiers killed in Iraq since last year's ceremony.

"It's probably the most emotional and moving experience that I've had as governor to be with these families who are still suffering their loss, and thank them for being here today," Taft said.

The ceremony is held at Veterans Plaza on the east side of the Statehouse near walls inscribed with letters written home by Ohio veterans of several wars.

Michael Earley, of Wilmington, came to honor his son, Staff Sgt. Steven Conover, killed Nov. 2. Conover was among 16 Americans who died in a missile attack on a helicopter near Fallujah, Iraq, as it carried troops bound for two weeks' leave.

His son was "full of life, and a soldier through and through," said Earley, 41, a school-bus driver and maker of custom knives. "He gave his life so we could have our freedoms."

Earley said he had designed knives in honor of his son and plans to donate them to the families of each soldier who died in the helicopter crash.

Being at the ceremony, Earley said, "brought up a lot of things we might have put in a closet for a while emotionally, but a lot of pride, a lot of pride."