One of 2 pilots killed in Iraq a Fil-Am — report

A Filipino-American pilot was killed in a helicopter crash on Jan. 16 north of Baghdad after the aircraft was shot down by Iraqi rebel missiles, a Hawaii-based newspaper reported.

Ruel Garcia, 34, was one of two crewmen killed when their Apache helicopter gunship went down north of Taji, the Honolulu Advertiser reported.

Garcia has relatives in Hawaii, where he had lived for several years before moving to Texas, the newspaper said.

"He was a good boy. He was very talented," the paper quoted Garcia’s grandfather, 80-year-old Nicolas Garcia, as saying.

The newly married Garcia was born in Manila and had lived with his grandparents in Hawaii in the 1990s, the elder Garcia said. A sister, Eden, lives in Waipahu.

The Advertiser described how the distraught grandfather wept as he talked on the phone to the pilot’s mother in California. Nicolas Garcia said Ruel was his first grandson.

Ruel Garcia was in Iraq for his second deployment and had recently gotten married and bought a house and lot in Texas, the latter upon the grandfather’s advice.

Before returning to Kuwait last fall, the pilot had talked to his grandfather.

"He told me he’s going back to Iraq to continue his obligation as an Army pilot and to protect the country," Nicolas Garcia told the Advertiser.

Ruel Garcia first joined the Air Force and later moved to the Army, the paper added.

The Apache carries only a pilot and a co-pilot. The crash last Monday was the third by a US helicopter in two weeks, and the Pentagon was reported to be investigating to determine whether the spate of crashes reflected a shift in tactics by militants.

On Christmas Eve, Army Sgt. Myla Maravillosa of Wahiawa, Hawaii was killed in an attack by insurgents in Hawijah, north of Baghdad. The remains of the 24-year-old Fil-Am soldier were returned to her native Bohol in the Central Philippines where she was given a hero’s burial.