R.I. kin mourn cheerleader turned Marine

COVENTRY, R.I. -- Holly A. Charette was a cheerleader in high school, a ''girlie girl" who, her friends said, liked to make faces to entertain them.

But Sept. 11, 2001, changed her, friends said. Charette, who had high-kicked and cheered for the boy's hockey team, became serious and focused. She took long runs to harden her physique.

In late 2001, Charette joined the Marines, becoming one of the few women to join the ''few good men," as the elite service branch is sometimes known.

Earlier this year, Charette, by then a lance corporal, was deployed to Iraq as part of the Headquarters Battalion of the Second Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force.

Charette died Thursday when a suicide bomber driving a vehicle packed with explosives rammed her military convoy in Fallujah, killing her and at least three other female troops. It was the deadliest attack on women in the US military since the start of the Iraq war.

Athletic, upbeat, and given to delivering ice cream to sick friends, Charette, 21, was ''loved by all of us and everyone that she knew," her aunt, Charlene Wheetman, said in a brief statement she read in front of the family's house in Coventry.

''She wanted to be a Marine after 9/11. She wanted to do something for her country. She was a very proud Marine. We are all missing a part of our hearts without her here."

After three years of training at Camp Lejeune, N.C., Charette had started delivering mail in Iraq's dangerous Anbar Province. She made her rounds in full battle uniform -- flak jacket, Kevlar helmet, and M-16 A4 rifle, according to the Marine Corps News.

Charette was also making plans for life after the Marines. She was engaged to another member of the military who is serving in Iraq, Wheetman said. He had planned to return to the United States in October, and she was to follow him in March.

Charette is at least the seventh Rhode Island resident to die in Iraq and was the second military woman with ties to the state to be killed.

Army CWO5 Sharon T. Swartworth, 43, a graduate of a Warwick high school, was killed in a helicopter crash in 2003 in Iraq. She was living in Virginia with her husband and 8-year-old son.

Though Charette had once planned to become a social worker, she liked delivering mail, even in the hot, dusty region of Iraq. She wanted to join the US Postal Service when she returned home.

''It won't be the same as being a Marine, but at least I'm still in uniform," she said in an interview with the Marine Corps News in May.

Delivering mail, Charette got to know many of the troops by name, and they got to know her.

They looked forward to the sight of her trudging toward them, a bulging yellow mailbag slung over her shoulder. Letters from relatives, friends, and romances back home provided one of the few respites from the tension of war, Charette said in the interview.

''I never really thought too hard about being a mail person, but it's really an important job and people depend on me," Charette said. ''There are a lot of stresses involved, but it's really worth it at the end of the day."

Governor Don Carcieri ordered flags across Rhode Island lowered to half-staff yesterday in Charette's honor.

''Her sacrifice represents the best Rhode Island has to offer," Carcieri said. ''We can never forget the courage and conviction of those like Holly Charette, who risk their lives in service to their country."

Charette was a 2001 graduate of Cranston High School East, but her family moved about a year ago from Cranston to a quiet street of ranch-style houses in Coventry. Yesterday neighbors delivered flowers and paid condolence calls.

''We can't live in a world like this; it's no good," said neighbor Tom Morgan, his eyes filling with tears as he pulled groceries from the back of his car. Morgan, a mason, had lowered the American flag in his front lawn to half-staff.

''Kids are the cream of the crop, and we're losing them, in a country like this," he said.

Wheetman said arrangements will be made for a military funeral, though no date has been set.