Army Pfc. Lori Piestewa was not only the first female American soldier killed in combat in Iraq, she was also the first U.S. military mother to die in the war.

In all, six mothers in uniform have died in Iraq between the start of the war in March 2003 and the end of November, leaving behind a total of 10 children. Overall, 27 women troops have died in the war.

Among the mothers were:

• Piestewa, 23, who died in the March 23, 2003, ambush in which Pfc. Jessica Lynch was captured in Nasiriyah. She had two children, Brandon, 4, and Carla, 3. Both now are being raised by their grandparents in El Paso, Texas.

• Another single Army mother, Spc. Jessica Cawvey, joined the Illinois National Guard to build a better life for her daughter, Sierra, 6. In Iraq since February, Cawvey, died Oct. 6 when a roadside bomb exploded as her convoy passed near Fallujah.

Cawvey, 21, "wasn't the military type," her mother, Sandra Cawvey, told a local newspaper. She enlisted in the Guard simply to help pay for college so she could get a decent job. Before she deployed to Iraq, Cawvey had been living with her parents and Sierra, and working on a bachelor's degree in accounting at Illinois State University in Normal, Ill.

The impact of Cawvey's death on Sierra was somewhat cushioned by the fact that the child is continuing to live with her grandparents in Mahomet, Ill. "She's doing just fine," said Clarence Cawvey, Jessica's uncle. "It's more like she lost a sister."

• Less than a week after Cawvey died, Army Sgt. Pamela Osbourne was killed by shrapnel from a rocket attack on her camp in Baghdad. A native of Jamaica, Osbourne, 38, came to America when she was 14 with two dreams _ to become a U.S. citizen and to serve in the military.

A medical condition could have kept her out of Iraq duty, but Osbourne was determined to serve her country, her husband Rohan Osbourne told a local newspaper in Hollywood, Fla.

While she was deployed, her husband tended to their three children, ages 9 to 19. A supply specialist, Osbourne managed to call home al most every day, between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m.

She made her husband promise not to hide anything from the kids if the worst happened.

"Even if I come home in a box, you should know that I did it for (all of) you. Take care of the kids. Stay strong," Osbourne told her spouse.

(E-mail Lisa Hoffman at HoffmanL(at)shns.com.)