THE SHORT LIFE OF MARLA RUZICKA

The last days of U.S. humanitarian aid worker Marla Ruzicka:

Now, talking on the phone with McMahon, Ruzicka sounded upbeat. In the past few days, she had obtained a document that was her holy grail: a detailed report showing that the U.S. military keeps its own civilian-casualty records, something the Pentagon has repeatedly denied.
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At approximately three o'clock in the afternoon, Ruzicka and Faiz were heading east on the airport road, toward Baghdad. Also on the road were a U.S. military convoy and a convoy of private security contractors. From a nearby on-ramp, a suicide bomber merged into the traffic, most likely gunning for the military convoy, which he missed. Instead, he detonated beside his next best choice, the security convoy. Behind them was a Mercedes.
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Ruzicka is perhaps the most famous American aid worker to die in any conflict of the past ten or twenty years. Though a novice in life -- she had less than four years of professional humanitarian experience -- her death resonated far beyond the tightly knit group of war junkies and policymakers who knew her. She stands as a youthful representative of a certain kind of not-yet-lost American idealism, and darkly symbolic of what has gone so tragically wrong in Iraq.