Juana Navarro Arellano

Tuesday, April 11 2006 @ 11:57 PM EDT

www.marinetimes.com -- The third female Marine to be killed in action during Operation Iraqi Freedom died April 8, the Defense Department announced Tuesday.

Lance Cpl. Juana Navarro Arellano, 24, of Ceres, Calif., died from wounds she received while supporting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq.

According to a Defense Department release, Navarro was assigned to the 9th Engineer Support Battalion, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, which is based in Okinawa, Japan.

In June 2005, Cpl. Ramona Valdez and Lance Cpl. Holly Charette, who were assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, were killed by a car bomb in Fallujah. Before Navarro’s death, Valdez and Charette had been the only female Marines killed in Iraq since U.S. forces entered the country in March 2003, a Pentagon spokesman said.

www.montereyherald.com -- CERES, Calif. - A 24-year-old woman who was inspired to join the Marines after her younger twin brothers enlisted was fatally shot in the head in Iraq over the weekend.

Lance Cpl. Juana Navarro, of Ceres, was killed Saturday while guarding other soldiers during a mission in the Iraqi province of Anbar, said Marine Capt. Donn Puca.

"This was something she always wanted to do," said her older sister, Beatriz Lopez.

She left for duty in May, her family said.

Navarro was born in Michoacan, Mexico, and she and a twin sister became U.S. citizens at age 13. She graduated from Johansen High School in Modesto in 2000, where she volunteered with special education children.

She showered her three nephews with gifts, Lopez said.

"She was like a second mom to my oldest," Lopez said. "When I told him she died, his face, it just shattered into pieces."

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