New York Daily News

NEW YORK – For several U.S. families, this Christmas will forever be marred by the memory of a military officer standing in their doorway with news that their soldier was killed fighting in Iraq.

“It was a really sad Christmas,” sobbed Estelita Maravillosa of Wahiawa, Hawaii, who froze when a uniformed officer surfaced at her apartment on Christmas Eve with word that her only daughter died in combat that day.

Sgt. Myla Maravillosa, a 24-year-old soldier in the Army Reserves, was killed when rocket-propelled grenades slammed into her Humvee in the northern city of Al Hawijah. Seven American soldiers have been killed in combat since Friday – including two on Christmas Day and one Monday.

At least four of the U.S. families were notified so far, but the names of the Christmas Day victims were not yet released.

A Defense Department spokeswoman said the military does make house calls on Christmas, but would not confirm if any were made Sunday.

Estelita’s Christmas Eve visit haunts her.

“She had only been there (in Iraq) a month,” she said of Myla, who never had a chance to unwrap the macadamia nuts and homemade cookies her mother mailed her last week.

Sgt. Regina Reali, 25, of Fresno, Calif., promised her brother Paul, “I’ll call you on Christmas.” But instead, military personnel rang his doorbell Friday night to say his little sister, an Army Reservist, was the victim of a roadside bomb in Baghdad that day.

“We were so close. I hadn’t seen her in five months,” said Paul Reali, 27, who had shipped his sister a small plastic tree complete with ornaments that she kept by her bunk.

Their dad, Richard, was driving to visit Paul Reali for the holidays and arrived 30 minutes after soldiers delivered the news of Regina’s death.

Telling his dad about Regina was “the most difficult thing I’ve ever done,” Paul Reali said.

He described his father’s reaction as sadness and anger.

“He can’t talk about it. He is too broken up,” Paul Reali said.

Also killed in that vehicle was Spc. Cheyenne Willey, 36, of Fremont, Calif. His stepfather, Charlie Miller, declined to comment.

In Seven Hills, Ohio, the Andres clan was eagerly awaiting the arrival of Master Sgt. Joseph Andres Jr., 34, who was due to come home this week on leave to toast New Year’s Eve with his parents, Joseph and Sandra, and five sisters.

Andres had just bought a home in Fayetteville, N.C., near where he was stationed, and the family pitched in to pay for his window treatments as a holiday gift.

But on Christmas Eve morning, an officer told them Andres died when insurgents attacked his Special Operations Command in Baqubah. His parents are still too devastated to speak, but his sister Sharon said, “He was a very special person.

“He always said he was fighting over there so they wouldn’t come here. He was doing it to protect us,” she said.

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