Theresa Inouye is living every mother's worst nightmare and the worst of it is yet to come.

But as she prepared for Friday's military funeral at Punchbowl, Inouye found comfort yesterday in thanking the community for the way it responded to the death of her son, Sgt. Deyson Cariaga. He was 20, her youngest, the one she called "the Pied Piper" because children everywhere — from Kalihi to Iraq — were drawn to him.

"He liked helping people," she said in a soft voice. "He loved children."

Even in death, that was something Inouye could smile about, if only for a moment.

"It's very difficult," Inouye said during a news conference. "It's still pretty much surreal. I think we all have been strong together and working to get through this together."

As cameras zoomed and shutters clicked, she gripped the left hand of her other son, Lance Cariaga.

Deyson Cariaga died July 8 while serving with the Hawai'i Army National Guard in Balad, Iraq. He was at the wheel of a Humvee when an improvised bomb exploded beneath the vehicle. He was the first citizen soldier from Hawai'i killed during the year-long deployment of the guard's 29th Brigade Combat Team.

Inouye wanted people to know her son as something more than a military casualty, she said yesterday.

"He was a local boy who loved surfing, loved the ocean," she said. "Family 'ohana was No. 1 in his life. He was willing to share with everybody. He had a very competitive spirit."

Her son arrived in Iraq in February and sent e-mail to his mother on a weekly basis, Inouye said.

He wrote about the heat, which pushed the mercury to 120, and the ever-present dust, as fine as talcum powder.

He told her to stop sending food because the Hawai'i soldiers had been inundated with so many goodies that he was getting fat. Still, she mailed him his favorites — li hing mango and coconut balls.

He wanted his surfing DVDs — Cariaga couldn't get enough of them, his mother said — and often asked how the family dogs were doing.

"He was homesick," Inouye said.

Her son never spoke about his job as a member of the Guard's 299th Military Intelligence Company, Inouye said, and she didn't ask. She knew Iraq was a dangerous place.

"They were very busy doing their job and I wanted to make sure he concentrated and focused on what he needed to do there," she said.

In many ways, Iraq was not what her son expected. It differed from his training and the life he had at home. On a personal Web site a few weeks ago, Cariaga wondered what he had gotten himself into, but his mother understood where he was coming from.

"I think at that point my interpretation was it hit home that war is not a nice thing," she said. "We all don't want to be in that situation but I think he was just trying to cope the best he could."

Lance Cariaga listened to his mother yesterday and when it was his turn to speak, the 32-year-old sibling drew a deep breath.

"I am very proud of my brother," Lance Cariaga said. "He enlisted of his own free will because he felt he wanted to serve a greater purpose. And he did his job."

His brother, too young for the two of them to have much in common, was a "compassionate person," Lance Cariaga said. He was a "typical 20-year-old" who hung out with his friends and liked to sleep.

"He was a soldier, no doubt about it, but he was a person as well. And that's what I think I want people to remember."

Deyson Cariaga will be eulogized during a public service Thursday evening and a private funeral Friday morning.

The Thursday memorial begins with public viewing at 5 p.m. and a service at 6 p.m. at the Mission Memorial Auditorium, at 560 S. King St. A private funeral will be at 9:30 a.m. Friday at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Cariaga's mother hopes the death of her son will not distract his friends still in Iraq. Her son would want them to stay focused.

"The death of my son is just a very big loss for myself and my family," Inouye said. "But I think Deyson would have wanted his soldiers, his buddies, his friends to be strong and to carry out the mission that they were sent there for. He went there for a cause and it was for all of our freedom."