But when the day came for the young man to arrive back home in Farmington, he didn't.

"A day later, Kort showed up," Heiner recalled. He had been coming home in a blizzard and passed a family with some little kids whose car was broken down. He towed their vehicle 300 miles out of his way - and even gave them the Christmas ham that his boss had given him."

And that's just the sort of thing that Jensen made a habit of doing, family members and friends said this week.

"He had the biggest heart you could ever imagine anyone having," Heiner said.

Jensen died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 31. Family and friends say he had suffered greatly, mentally and physically, since returning from his second tour of duty in Iraq. At Jensen's funeral on Friday, Heiner said that she certainly hadn't wanted her son's life to end in that way, but that she understood that he had been in great pain, and she was conforted to know that he was "free."

Jensen once told his sister that people should be judged on how many friends show up at their funeral. And by that standard, he did pretty well for himself. Morners included large groups of spit-polished soldiers, rail-thin bull riders and heavily-tatooed bikers, among the more straight-laced, church-going, suit-wearing folks you might expect of a funeral in Utah. It might seem a rather motley crew to some, but Kelly Jensen said it made sense: His son was a friend to everyone.

Before leaving for his first tour of duty in Iraq in 2004, Jensen's teenage sister, Kelsey, begged her brother to stay.

"I told him I didn't want him to die," Kelsey recalled. "And he told me that, if he died in the service of our country, then that was a happy thing."

And ultimately, that's what happened. Veterans officals agree that Jensen's death was as much a consequence of combat as the deaths of soldiers who have been killed immediately from bombs and bullets.

And while no one who knew Jensen would consider the days, following his death, as a happy time, there was as much laughter as tears as people gathered to remember his remarkable life.

And so it was that, at the end of his funeral, they sang:

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine;

You make me happy when skies are grey;

You'll never know dear, how much I love you;

Please don't take my sunshine away."