TUCSON -- An 18-year-old female Army soldier from Tucson has been killed in action in Iraq on 4-17-05.

Army Pvt. 1st Class Sam Huff died Sunday when a roadside bomb hit her convoy in Baghdad, according to her family. She was 10 weeks into her overseas tour of duty.

Huff was a military police officer with the 504th Military Police Battalion of Fort Lewis, Wash.

She enlisted just after graduation last year from Mountain View High School in Marana and shipped out for the Middle East on Feb. 4.

"When she was 16, she came to us and said, `I decided what I want to do. I want to go into the Army, and you're going to have to sign for me because I want to enlist early,'" her father, Robert Huff, said Monday. "There was no arguing with her."

Huff, a retired Tucson police detective, said he spoke with his daughter Wednesday, and his wife, Margaret Williams, talked with her Friday.

Williams is a former Marine and is the communications director for the Oro Valley Police Department.

On the day she died, Sam Huff was driving an armored Humvee in Baghdad, the third vehicle in a three-vehicle convoy. Her family was told an explosive device went off and penetrated her driver's-side door, killing her. All the other soldiers in the convoy survived.

Huff said his daughter gave her life for "a noble cause."

"Thank God these kids are willing to stand up, especially in a time of war," he said. "She was willing. She's the bravest kid I've ever known. She was up and down that damned road between Baghdad and the Baghdad airport, which is notorious for those improvised explosive devices. But she knew the risks, and she believed in the mission."

Jeremy Vega, a classmate at Mountain View, said Huff talked often of joining the military and then following her parents into law enforcement.

"She talked about it a lot all through high school. In her senior year, she was really gung-ho about it. Military police is what she always wanted to do," said Vega, an 18-year-old University of Arizona freshman. "She always joked about being in the military police so she could boss guys around. She was a born leader."

A memorial service for Huff is scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday at Casas Adobes Baptist Church in Tucson.

Robert Huff asked Army officials from Fort Huachuca to arrange for his daughter to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

"I know Arlington is probably a difficult place to get your children buried, but I believe she deserves to be there because that's where heroes are buried," he said.

Sam Huff is the second female soldier from Tucson killed in Iraq.

Army Reserve Sgt. Tina Time, a 22-year-old Pima Community College student, was killed in a vehicle accident in December.