The other day a genuine hero died in Iraq. Marla Ruzicka faced the stark dangers well known in Iraq and finally fate caught up with her. Although she died much too early for someone who brought so much good to the world, she did not die in vain. Her bravery and audacity has been recorded in any number of blog posts and columns as she had touched so many lives. In Iraq, she touched the military, the journalists and most of all the Iraqis and they all speak of someone who made a difference in their lives and the sorrow they feel now that she is gone.

Here is a sampling of those voices.

Major Bob Bateman wrote from Iraq:

Marla Ruzicka was 28. She was from California. Her parents are Republicans. She was not, and though I would not presume to know what her personal politics were, I am assuming they were considerably left of that point. She has a twin brother. She was dedicated to people, to improving life and saving life. She felt a deep and abiding need to do everything she could towards that end. In the course of her life she worked for one NGO, then founded another. The latter, Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), had as its mission, the cataloging of civilian deaths in this war. That is a task which the military does not pursue (nor, for what it is worth, has any military ever done so), and Ms. Ruzicka thought it important that these numbers should be counted. But more significantly, from where I sit, is the fact that she did not catalog numbers from the safety of a desk in some London office. She did not just compile news clippings and then post them on the alternet. She came here, lived here, and attached a human face to those casualties. Then she worked to relieve their suffering. She learned the systems, first agitating in Washington, DC, and eventually here. She did so even to the degree of working with the military to help distribute funds for the victims which the military has for that purpose, all of this in order to help innocent people. In the end, it seems, she left politics aside in favor of practical reality and set her shoulder to work for humans, not just ideals. Nobody I know opposes an objective such as that.

From Chris Albritton we see this side:

Because what Marla was doing was important and necessary. The night before she died, at one of her thrown-together parties, she said she was staying in Baghdad longer than she had originally planned because she was close to establishing that the military kept records on civilian deaths in Iraq, despite military statements that such records don�€™t exist. She had personally verified about 2,000 casualties through painstaking casework, although she knew these were just the tip of the iceberg. Through the strength of her personality, she persuaded U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy to push $17.5 million in compensation funds through Congress.

For journalists here, she was our little sister, our masseuse at parties and sometimes our project. For all her energy and good work, she was troubled, telling me over dinner one night about her anxieties and battles with depression. Her mood rollercoasted between mania and tears, and we often felt protective, but also sometimes impatient. Marla, go home; it�€™s so hard on you�€”and us, I remember thinking selfishly. I felt this was not the place for DIY therapy, for saving oneself by helping others.

But I think now I was wrong. She helped so many and she was so loved. She died doing exactly what she was born to do, and thousands are grateful to her. Thousands were saved by her. And what have we, the journalists who took her in, done? Compared to the beautiful, sad pixie, most of us are dwarves.

She was so many things to so many people, but for the journalists who knew and loved her she was, ultimately, our heart and our conscience.

And then there was her impact on the people of Iraq. One of Marla’s closest ties in Iraq was with Raed Jarrar, the Iraqi made so famous during the Iraq invasion by Salam Pax’s Where’s Raed blog. (Raed is the author of a blog called Raed in the Middle.) She and Raed conducted the first systematic survey in Iraq after the invasion for how many Iraqi civilians died during the 50 days after the bombing started. What they found was there were 1995 dead and 4959 injured during those days. Marla used this study to lobby for justice for the Iraqi civilians.

Here’s Raed’s reflection on Marla’s life:

Marla was very energetic, she didn�€™t waist a single minute without doing work. She used to swim for long hours so that she won�€™t waste the time of her break doing nothing. Marla and I spent hours and days traveling around the country in small uncomfortable taxi cars, we went all around the south, and the north. I remember one time when she decided to sneak out of the taxi in Najaf and go walk around the shrine of the holly shia city. I came back to the car and freaked out because she wasn�€™t there! I asked the driver in a loud voice: �€œHow did you let her go alone! She doesn�€™t speak Arabic!�€�, the other thing that made me feel worried was that it�€™s not really familiar to have women going around Najaf without covering their hair. I really thought she would be in trouble, so I went running in the street trying to find her, and it seems that some people figured out that I was searching for the blonde stranger, so they started shouting �€� Mister�€� Mister�€� from there!�€� I followed their advice and found her in the middle of a group of 50 men, women and children totally shocked to see an American without a gun! she was shaking hands with them and saying �€œsorry �€� sorry �€� sorry we invaded your country �€� sorry we killed your people�€��€�.

I stopped there with the people, and smiled while watching her. I was sure no one understood what she was saying, but people knew she was being nice and friendly. I would have advised her not to do such a thing if she asked me, but she didn�€™t. Yet, I kind of felt happy she did that. It was a nice move to have more personal contact with Iraqis at the time that any foreigner was a big mystery. It was important to tell Iraqis that not all Americans come with guns, some of them come with smiles and hopes to make friends.

Marla left her country and put herself in danger for years in Afghanistan and Iraq trying to help people effected by wars that she apposed. She will stay in the memory of hundreds of Iraqis as a symbol of anti-war Americans who tried to fix what their government did in Iraq.

It is a sad irony that the very tables that we created to contain names of civilian casualties, contain her name now.

What they ask of us is to remember Marla by donating to CIVIC, the organization she founded to remember the innocent victims of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.