Karina Lau

Pfc. Karina Lau sang and played clarinet and saxophone, and won awards for music and math. She dreamed of returning to school after her military service and someday setting up her own music shop. "I prayed for her every day telling her to be careful," said her mother, Ruth Lau, of Livingston, Calif. "She said she was safe. We never expected that anything would happen to her." Lau, 20, was one of 16 soldiers killed in the Nov. 2 downing of a helicopter carrying troops home on leave. Lau attended the University of Pacific on a music scholarship before joining the Army in January 2002. She received training as a radio operator at Fort Hood during boot camp before she was deployed to Iraq at the beginning of the war. Just a few hours before boarding the helicopter, Lau sent an e-mail to her half-sister, Martha Rivera. "Don't worry," it read. "I'll be careful."

I remember Lau mostly from when we were in Kuwait. I was sitting outside of the post exchange one night before moving into Iraq. I was waiting for me turn to go into the store when Lau walked up and asked if she could stand with me. We got into a discussion about life and expectations. She wanted so badly to open her own music club.

A few weeks later we all hooked up again. this time outside of Fallujah. My team and SGT Meeks team were joined. Lau ended up working for me. This went on for a few months. Did we get along? Not so much. I am a stickler for discipline, Lau was a free spirit, (read not ready for army life). She and I bumbed heads a few times.

The last time I saw Lau, she was crying. I had told her that she would not make it in the Army. She was so quiet. I remeber her tears.

My team left a few hours later, we moved to the Syrian border. about a month later I was waiting for some instructions when my section Sergeant came out. He showed up later in the evening. I was pissed off that I had to wait so long. I asked him why t took him so long to fly out with our radio frequencys. He said "Lau's aircraft is missing".

I thought he was fucking with me.

It was not until later when we heard over the Battalion net radio that 2 aircraft had been shot down.

Lau was going on leave. She had spent 6 months in country and was going home to tell her parents that she was getting engaged.

Her aircraft was shot down travelling from Al Asad Iraq to Kuwait so that she could go home.

I spoke with one of the first soldiers to make it to the crash site,I asked them what it was like.

He told me that nothing in the world would have prepared him for the things he saw that day. He remembers seeing Laus body on the aircraft. She was broke in half. Bent backwards at the waist. The only way he identified her was by her name tape on he uniform.

She was 20 years old.

She played the Saxaphone.

I made her cry.

I wish she was still here.