Slain Soldier and Daughters of St. Paul

My L’il bro Thom sends this along – a story of a young life lived in service, one way or another.

Sgt. Myla Maravillosa and friend

Family and friends said a U.S. soldier from Hawaii who was killed in Iraq on Christmas Eve felt honored to serve her country but that she also was contemplating a different kind of service — religious life.

Sister Susan John Kraus, a Daughter of St. Paul, said Sgt. Myla Maravillosa was thinking of joining her order. She said it was clear from her e-mails that Maravillosa “was growing in her spiritual life” and that “her relationship with the Lord had really deepened.”

In one of those messages, written just before she went to Iraq, the soldier admitted to being “scared a little bit.” However, “God has been inviting me to remain in him,” Maravillosa wrote. “If I remain in him, he will see me through and carry me home.”

Maravillosa, 24, was an interrogator for the U.S. Army Reserve’s 301st Military Intelligence Battalion based at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. She had only been in Iraq since Nov. 20 and was the second female U.S. soldier to be killed there.

Dozens of military personnel gathered at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu Dec. 31 for a memorial service honoring her. Also attending were friends and relatives, a U.S. congressman and members of the Daughters of St. Paul.

Maravillosa died from injuries she sustained when the Humvee in which she was riding was struck from behind by a rocket-propelled grenade. She was in the back seat of her vehicle, the last one in a convoy of five on a routine patrol.
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“She met the sisters at the cathedral at Mass and she just felt right away the attraction for religious life,” said Sister Susan, one of the sisters who operate the downtown Pauline Book and Media Center. “She would come to visit us and volunteer at least a couple of times a week.

The Dec. 31 cathedral service was a somber hour of testimony and remembrances in words, pictures and music. The Rev. Gary Dale, a Protestant chaplain and Army major, offered the opening prayer.

“She touched so many in so many different ways,” Rev. Dale said. “She sacrificed her own (freedom) so that the Iraqi people could be free.”

Brig. Gen. Gregory Schumacher, commander of the Military Intelligence Readiness Command, flew in from Washington to speak.

“She approached everything she did with a positive spirit,” he said. “She was a servant of God, her country, her fellow man.”

He described Maravillosa as “a young woman who cared for the downtrodden,” adding that she “left joy in the hearts of all those she came in contact with.”

Our military seems to be filled with really fine people. Every loss is utterly tragic. And noble.