HONOKAA, Hawaii - Wesley J. Batalona believed the Iraqi people could live a better life and was willing to sacrifice his own to try to help them.

"He thought the people over there were good people," his sister-in-law, Darla Baquiring, said Saturday. "That's why he was over there. To help the children."

Now Batalona's family awaits the return of his remains after learning late Thursday that the former Army Ranger was one of four American civilians killed in a brutal attack last week in Fallujah.

Batalona, 48; Jerko "Jerry" Zovko, 32; Michael Teague, 38, and Scott Helvenston, 38, were killed in an ambush Wednesday, their charred bodies mutilated and dragged through the streets filled with cheering Iraqis. The contractors were working for Blackwater Security Consulting when their vehicle was hit by rocket-propelled grenades.

Batalona's death and the aftermath has infuriated, shaken and saddened this tight-knit rural community on the Big Island's Hamakua Coast- and Americans across the nation.

Baquiring called the mutilation of the American bodies "disgusting and sickening."

The deaths have also renewed debate on whether the United States should remain in Iraq, or whether President Bush should have ever declared war.

Richard Carvalho, who has known Batalona for decades, asked why are Americans trying to help Iraqis if they don't want it.

"They are killing the people that are trying to help them," he said.

Batalona's 18-year-old niece, Sheena Baquiring, recalled a discussion she had with him.

"I asked him, 'How are the people up there?' and he told me, 'Don't believe what you see on TV or read in the newspaper because it's not true. They're really nice people and they are hard workers,"' she said.

Batalona's widow, June, spent Saturday inside her plantation-style home, grieving with family members and friends.

June Batalona said she hasn't slept since her husband's identity was released Thursday. She lost her high-school sweetheart.

"I'm drained," she said.

Darla Baquiring said she and other family members had a gut feeling Batalona was involved in the civilian attack when she first read about it.

"There was something about that article, it reached out to me unlike anything I read about over there," she said. "But I didn't want to believe it was him. I thought they wouldn't do that to him. Especially with a man like Wes, with the intentions he had."

After retiring from the Army, Batalona had worked security at the Hilton Waikoloa Village before going to Iraq this year.

Batalona was one of 10 children and he joined the Army in 1974 after graduating from Honokaa High School, where he was student body president.

Batalona was stationed for much of his career in Georgia, where his daughter, Krystal Batalona, 22, now goes to college with aspirations of becoming a lawyer.

Friends and family say Batalona was a smart man, who loved to fish, browse the Internet and tell stories. He was also very proud of his Native Hawaiian heritage.

Earl Ventura, a neighbor and a sergeant in the Hawaii National Guard, said the community respected Batalona for his military service and for his commitment to try to help Iraqis.

"This a tight-knit plantation community," Ventura said. "Not everybody gets to be a ranger. He was probably the only one that made it. He was a hero to us."

His sister-in-law agreed.

"I admired him because for a local boy, he has such high hopes and dreams," Baquiring said. "And with him being over there, it shows he followed through with them."