Marla Ruzicka

From the news reports:

In her one-woman mission to make the United States take responsibility for the innocent victims of its wars, 28-year-old Marla Ruzicka bubbled with a passion that seemed to lift her beyond danger. ...

"God bless her pure soul, she was trying to help us," said Haj Natheer Bashir, the brother-in-law of an Iraqi teenager Ruzicka was trying to evacuate to the Bay Area for surgery. "She was just a kind lady." ...

He added that he was proud of her as a "lady with a tremendously open heart and warm feelings toward the people who've been in conflict and war." ...

A few days after Baghdad fell in April 2003, Ruzicka showed up in Iraq. She began building a volunteer network to document civilian casualties. ...

"I thought it would be better to wait for a while and see if the situation got better than to put her life at risk," she said. "She was determined to go because the people she worked with didn't have the luxury not to be at risk."

LAT 18 Apr 2005