I opened the CNN website tonight to see a story about an American humanitarian aid worker killed by a car bomb in Iraq. And after I opened the story and glanced at the picture, I was reading the text, and suddenly I thought, "That's Marla!" Marla Ruzicka. I can't say I knew her particularly well. She lived in my building in DC for a while; I hung out with her at parties in town a handful of times. Nothing more.

Perhaps there's something or someone I'm forgetting. But thinking it over now I believe she's the first person I could say I knew in any real way who was killed over there.

I didn't know her nearly well enough to have any business describing her to you. I was always fuzzy about just what it was she did over in Iraq -- something you can find more information about in the various articles describing her death. I will leave it at sharing that memory. And may she rest in peace.