JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARBULLETIN.COM
Waipio resident Nick Garcia held a photograph yesterday of his grandson Chief Warrant Officer Ruel Garcia, who was killed Monday in Iraq while piloting an AH-64 Apache helicopter.
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The family of one of two Army attack Apache helicopter pilots killed Monday in Iraq plans to bury the soldier in the Philippines, which he left nearly two decades ago to pursue his dream to fly.
Chief Warrant Officer Ruel Garcia lived with grandfather Nick Garcia in Waipahu in 1987 because he wanted to be a military pilot, Nick Garcia said. Garcia now lives in Waipio.
Family friend Benny Quiseng said the younger Garcia had graduated from a college in Manila with a degree in electrical engineering. Once in the United States, he had to start all over again.
Nick Garcia said during the five or six years his grandson lived with him, he attended the adult high school at Waipahu at nights to get a U.S. high school diploma.
With that in hand, Nick Garcia said his grandson was able to get into the Air Force in 1992, where he served for four years. After he became a naturalized citizen, he switched to the Army to attend helicopter flight school.
On Monday, Ruel Garcia, 34, was killed when his AH-64 Apache attack helicopter crashed north of Taji. It was his second combat tour in Iraq.
He and the other crew member, also a pilot who was killed, belonged to Task Force Ironhorse, part of the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Hood in Texas. There have been reports that the copter might have been shot down.
Garcia was one of 12 U.S. service members and four civilians killed as the result of three separate helicopter crashes that occurred in Iraq this month.
Although there has not been official confirmation of Garcia's death by the Pentagon, Nick Garcia said one of his daughters called from Long Beach, Calif., telling him his first grandchild from his other daughter, who lives in the Philippines, had been killed in Iraq.
"She was crying when she called," said Nick Garcia, 80, "and I started crying, too, like a baby."
With help from Quiseng, Garcia said he used the Internet to try to get more information of how his grandson was killed.
Garcia said his grandson loved to play tennis. "When he was living in the Philippines, he wrote to me asking for a tennis racket, so I made him several and sent them to him."
Garcia said his grandson married a girl from the Philippines three months ago and bought a 1-acre home in Texas.
In October the younger Garcia called his grandfather, telling him he was going back to Iraq for the second time.
"I advised him not to go out alone and be careful because there are so many roadside bombs," the elder Garcia said. "He told me, 'Yes, Grandpa, I will be very careful.'"
Quiseng also received a call from Ruel Garcia before he left, and he was not happy about returning to Iraq.
"He told me, 'It can't be helped,'" Quiseng said. "'I'm a pilot, and I am doing this for my country.'"
Garcia is also survived by his parents, Resendo and Cynthia Garcia, who live near Manila; wife Apple, of Texas; brother, Ramisis, also of the Philippines; sister Eden; and step-grandmother Gloria.
Nick Garcia said funeral services will be held in early February in the Philippines, where his family and friends live.