HONOKAA, Hawaii — Family and friends of Wesley Batalona, one of four civilian contractors brutally killed in Iraq last month, remembered him Saturday as a hero who wanted to help the Iraqi people.
Gov. Linda Lingle and Rep. Ed Case were among about 300 people who extended condolences to family at the Honokaa Ward Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, which Batalona attended growing up in this tight-knit rural community on the Big Island's Hamakua Coast.
"There are two kinds of heroes," Bishop Thomas Heers said. "A courageous hero. And a Saturday morning hero who gets up and makes breakfast for the family. Wesley was both kinds of hero. He was God's kind of hero."
Batalona, 48, was killed March 31 in Fallujah, Iraq, when a vehicle he was in was hit by rocket-propelled grenades. He and the three other American victims were working for Moycock, N.C.-based Blackwater Security. Their bodies were mutilated and burned and two were hung from the framework of a bridge.
"He went to Iraq and gave his life for them, for us and for God," said Batalona's daughter Kristal, 22.
"I cry because I miss him, but I am happy because my dad has come home to the Lord," she said.
Wesley Batalona was one of 10 children and joined the Army in 1974 after graduating from Honokaa High School, where he was student body president. He spent much of his career as an Army ranger stationed in Georgia.
Harold Vidinha, a cousin from Kauai and a fellow retired Army ranger, said he and Batalona left Hawaii together in October 2003 for Iraq, where they provided security for engineers trying to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure.
He said Batalona had trained for a possible rescue mission of the U.S. hostages in Iran and had played an instrumental role in testing and selecting various equipment for rangers.
"He was always in the thick of things," said Vidinha, who plans to return to Iraq.