Star Bulletin -- IT WAS JUST last month when Estelita Maravillosa said goodbye to her only child, Army Reserve Sgt. Myla L. Maravillosa, as the young woman left the family's Wahiawa home for a tour of duty in Iraq.

Although the family was not from the United States, they had become U.S. citizens after emigrating to Hawaii in the 1990s, and Maravillosa said her daughter felt honored to serve her adoptive country.

"She served the country because she is a U.S. citizen," Maravillosa said from her Wahiawa home yesterday. "She felt it's her duty to serve our country."

Maravillosa spent the holiday weekend in mourning after learning Saturday that her daughter died Christmas Eve in Kirkuk, Iraq.

The 24-year-old reservist died from injuries suffered earlier in the day when her Humvee was attacked by enemy forces using rocket- propelled grenades in Al Hawijah, the Pentagon said in a news release.

A member of the Army Reserve's 203rd Military Intelligence Battalion, based at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., Maravillosa became the 27th soldier with Hawaii ties killed in Iraq since the war started on March 19, 2003.

She had deployed to Iraq on Nov. 20, three days after a brief visit home, her mother said.

"I want her to be remembered forever," Estelita Maravillosa said through tears. "She was a very respectful daughter -- very quiet. She was very polite.

"It's very sad, so sad, that at Christmastime, that is our Christmas."

Maravillosa said her daughter had attended Leeward Community College and wanted to go to Hawaii Pacific University but was never able to enroll full time because of her Reserve training.

Myla Maravillosa had joined the Army Reserves after graduating from Leilehua High School in 1998, and hoped to earn money to attend college and possibly work overseas.

"She wanted to be in foreign services," her mother said. "She wanted to be an immigration officer, or she wanted to work in a U.S. embassy anywhere in the world."

A memorial service is being planned at the Cathedral of our Lady of Peace in Honolulu.

Estelita Maravillosa said she plans to bring her daughter's body back to her native Philippines for burial. The family hails from the town of Inabanga in the southern province of Bohol.