ARMY RESERVE SPC. CARLA JANE STEWART, 37, GLENDALE; KILLED IN CONVOY VEHICLE ROLLOVER
By Sandy Banks, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times, CA
Feb 25 2007
She was a wisp of a woman – 5 feet tall, with a cascading crown of dark
curls – so unfailingly pleasant and polite that her fellow soldiers
called her "Stuart Little" after the thoughtful little mouse in the
classic children’s story.
It had taken her 17 years to follow through on her adolescent dream
of military service. But when Carla Jane Stewart finally joined the
Army in July 2004, she dedicated herself to one goal: to serve in
war-torn Iraq.
A member of the Army Reserve’s 250th Transportation Company, based
in El Monte, Stewart, 37, was killed Jan. 28 when her convoy vehicle
overturned in Tallil, southeast of Baghdad. The accident is under
investigation by Army officials.
The daughter of Armenian immigrants, Stewart grew up with the trappings
of privilege in La Cañada Flintridge. She attended private schools,
spent seven years studying ballet, took riding lessons and spent
vacations water skiing and ice skating at her family’s second home
in Lake Arrowhead.
Stewart, whose parents divorced when she was a teenager, always had
an affinity for the less fortunate, her mother said.
"Carla had an innately noble nature," said Emmy Aprahamian, dressed
in black and perched on a sofa in her small Glendale apartment, where
the walls are crowded with photos of her daughter and tables piled
high with sympathy cards. "Carla loved animals, children, nature….
She was just a sweet soul who cared about doing good for everybody."
While in high school, she invited a friend to move in because the girl
had no place to live. Together, they decided to join the military. But
the girls got cold feet at the recruiter’s office, Aprahamian said.
Instead, after her 1987 graduation from Glendale’s Hoover High School,
Carla enrolled at Glendale Community College, studied mechanical
drafting and went to work for the structural engineering firm owned
by her father, Edmond Babayan.
At 25, she married Brandon Stewart, a high school friend who had been
a buddy of her younger brother, Richard. But 10 years later, estranged
from her husband, her old dream of military service resurfaced.
At 35, nearing the cutoff age for enlistment, she joined the Army
Reserve, whose soldiers receive combat training and attend weekend
drills but can live at home and maintain their civilian careers.
Neither of her parents understood her choice, but they didn’t try to
dissuade their headstrong daughter.
"Even if I had tried to stop her from going, it would have been
impossible," her mother said. "I warned her that she might have to go
to Iraq. She said, ‘Mom, that’s OK.’ " She was proud to be a soldier,
Aprahamian said. "She would say ‘Mom, this uniform feels so right.’ "
To her father, a former Marine, she admitted that she wanted to go
to Iraq. "She told me she was going to go on her own anyway" if her
unit wasn’t called up, he said.
When she learned that local Army Reserve units were being mobilized
to go to Iraq, she lobbied to join them.
"She called me at home," said her El Monte squad leader, Sgt. Frederick
Moore, "and told me ‘I need to go to Iraq.’ " A week later, on Jan. 12,
2006, Spc. Stewart was deployed to Iraq.
"She loved the Army," Moore told her family. And she was loved by her
fellow soldiers for her optimism, serenity in the face of danger and
unflagging high spirits, he said.
She was "always first to help with the biggest of tasks and always
greeted you with the biggest smile," Moore wrote in an e-mail read
at Stewart’s funeral.
In letters to her family after her death, Stewart’s Army friends
reminisced about her frantic search for coffee each morning, her
futile effort to give up smoking – "she kept bumming cigarettes from
everyone" – and her frequent shopping trips for health and beauty
supplies. She was funny and straightforward, they said. She spoke
her mind and listened to others. She never held a grudge.
"She was the kind of person able to get along with most everyone,"
wrote her roommate, Sgt. Anthea Duarte. "That says a lot about her,
because in this military, and in this life, that’s not an easy thing
to do."
In Iraq, Stewart was assigned to transportation, responsible for
delivering fuel, food, equipment and other supplies to combat forces.
The sight of the tiny woman atop a giant Humvee became a familiar one.
"Spc. Stewart never complained," said her commander, Capt. William
Bowman. "Whether she was working as a gunner or a driver, she did
her job well and with a smile on her face. When others were down,
she was there to lift them up."
Back home, her mother never stopped worrying. Tears would come
unexpectedly when she was driving her car or sitting alone in the
apartment.
"But I thought, ‘So many soldiers go and they come back. You cannot
cry, and nothing has happened. All I can do is pray,’ " she said.
Her mood had begun to lighten last month as her daughter’s expected
return date neared. Then she got a phone message from her daughter’s
commander: Their tour of duty, which was to have ended in March,
would be extended through the summer, he said.
Two days later, there was a knock at Aprahamian’s door. That same
commander was on her doorstep, delivering the news of her daughter’s
death. "When this happens," Aprahamian said, "I thought, ‘Maybe I
didn’t pray enough.’ "
Stewart was buried Feb. 10 at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park, Hollywood
Hills, after a funeral at the Hall of Liberty that drew hundreds of
friends, family members and fellow soldiers. There, her father paid
a final tribute to his soldier daughter.
"She surprised the life out of me," said Edmond Babayan, who joined
the Marine Corps after he immigrated to the United States at 18. "I
thought I was the brave one in the family…. She turned out to be
the brave, the tough, the best patriot of all of us.
"My little hero," he called her as he turned and faced his daughter’s
open casket. Then he said goodbye with a long salute and dropped to
his knees.
–Boundary_(ID_qYVg9u6grOuG3L/DVGlqGA)–