"He's a good boyfriend," a soft-spoken Melissa Carlos told The Maui News on Thursday as she spoke of the anxiety she's felt since she learned of his injury Sunday.

Carlos, 17, said she wants nothing more than for her high school sweetheart to be well and to return to Maui safely. The 19-year-old soldier proposed to her in December while on leave just before he was to be deployed to the Middle East in January.

On Sunday, she received a call.

Ponce's speech was slurred but understandable enough for Carlos to be reassured of his love.

"I told him I love him very much, too," she said with a smile.

Ponce, a 2006 Maui High School graduate, is recovering at the U.S. military hospital in Germany following an explosion in Iraq.

On Saturday, he was on a patrol in Sadr City, home of the militant Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, when a rocket-propelled grenade slammed into his Humvee just above the windshield.

He suffered shrapnel wounds to his face and hands and will need eye surgery.

Carlos said she was inconsolable over the weekend when she first heard about the attack that injured her fiance.

"I just kept crying, and I couldn't listen any more to what was being said."

Since then, she has kept in contact with Ponce each day. She said she has been comforted by family and friends and by the daily telephone calls from Ponce.

One came Thursday morning between classes at Maui High School, where Carlos is preparing for her graduation on June 2.

"He sounded a lot better," she said.

Ponce has had difficulty hearing out of one ear and has someone read for him because he also has trouble reading a computer screen clearly. His medical treatment has included morphine to ease his pain, according to Carlos. He was particularly talkative Thursday morning, but Carlos said she had to cut him off because of her school commitments.

She said she's unsure of Ponce's prognosis and is still awaiting news about when he'll be transferred from a U.S. military hospital in Germany to another medical facility in the U.S. for additional treatment and surgery.

Her hope is that he'll be healthy enough to come home for her commencement ceremonies on June 2.

"He said he'll try to make it but he's not sure if the Army will let him," Carlos said.

Ponce had served four months of a year's tour in Iraq when the RPG round struck his vehicle.

Ponce belongs to D Company, 2nd Battalion of the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division stationed in Ft. Bragg, N.C. His parents are Jean Ponce of Kahului and Wayne Ponce of Pukalani.

According to Carlos, while her boyfriend was proud to be called to duty, he mentioned that he wished he had more training before being deployed.

"I wished that too," she said.

Ponce enlisted with the Army during his junior year at Maui High. He completed basic training in October 2006 in Georgia with his mother and Carlos attending the graduation.

Shortly thereafter, he received orders to report to Iraq in January and was on Maui for about a week-and-a-half in December to say his goodbyes to family and friends. That was when he proposed marriage to Carlos. She accepted, but no wedding date has been set.

Carlos said that while she didn't like her fiance's choice of a career, she didn't discourage him.

"I don't want to be the person who prevents his dreams."

She said she's been most surprised by strangers who have been expressing concern for her and for her soldier fiance since the grenade attack.

"People I don't even know have been coming up to me asking me 'How are you? How's your boyfriend?' . . . That's different, it's not what I expected."

At Maui High School, officials are recognizing their injured alumnus, whom teachers remember as a pleasant, polite student who followed through on his convictions.

The school will hold a card-signing project, giving students an opportunity today to sign get-well cards during their lunch recess.

The student video club will also tape messages for individuals who want to express their regards in front of a camera.

Ponce's mother, Jean, has said she would forward any cards sent to her address: 100 Kuualoha St., Kahului 96732.