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Flag with photo of Sgt.Maravillosa (photo courtesy Tim Swartz)
By Patrick Downes
Catholic Herald of Hawaii
Like an American flag with a photo and dog tag of the late Hawaiian Army reservist Sgt.Myla Maravillosa, which was in Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2591 in Sedalia, Missouri, a rural town of 22,000 residents 90 miles east of Kansas City, showed up is a mystery, but those who found it want to give it back to their families.
Sgt. Maravillosa, 24, of Wahiawa, assigned to the 203rd Military Intelligence Battalion, Army Reserve, died on December 24, 2005 in Kirkuk, Iraq, of injuries sustained when her Humvee was in from enemy forces Hawija, Iraq, was attacked.
A memorial service was held at the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, Honolulu.
Maravillosa joined the reservations in 1999 after graduating from Leilehua High School.
The flag was “smaller than the one that would have been presented to the mother at the memorial service,” said retired first class sergeant Tim Swartz of Cole Camp, Missouri, who contacted the Hawaii Catholic Herald. “That flag was probably part of a memorial exhibition in her honor, when and where I have no idea.”
Swartz said the “flag was in a bag of flags that were collected to be soon disposed of in a flag ceremony”.
When the post commander saw this flag, he thought an attempt should be made to reunite it with Maravilosa’s family.
An Internet search brought the VFW into connection with the daughters of St. Paul, who were close to Maravillosa and who maintain a memorial for them in their mother house in Massachusetts. They’ll keep the flag until the family is found, Swartz said.
Any member of Myla Maravillosa’s family wishing to claim the flag should contact Sister Susan John Krauss at Daughters of St. Paul, 617-276-2668, 50 Saint Paul’s Ave., Jamaica Plain MA 02130-3433, or Tim Swartz in swartzeagles contact @ yahoo.com or 719-285-5892.
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