Ex-Mundelein woman killed in Iraq remembered as 'an amazing person'

Nicole Suveges had a very different background than most of her fellow graduate students at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

At 38, she was years older than most of her peers. She also was an Army reservist who'd served in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

And to top it off, she was a Republican in the relatively liberal political science department. As fellow graduate student Laura Locker recalled, Suveges celebrated President Bush's re-election in 2004 while some students were close to weeping.

But her political views, age or combat experience didn't keep Suveges from making friends. Rather, those factors strengthened some bonds.

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"I'm a die-hard Democrat who promised to never, ever be friends with a Republican," said Locker, of Portland, Ore. "But she made friends because she was just an amazing person. She was one of my few Republican friends."

Suveges, who was raised in Lake County but most recently lived in Edgewood, Md., was killed Tuesday in a bombing in Iraq. She was there as a civilian political scientist working with the U.S. Army.

Suveges was among four Americans -- two soldiers and another civilian -- killed in the attack.

Suveges' parents, Ed and Rita Suveges, live in Wauconda. Her sister, Michelle Mertins, is an advertising supervisor with the Daily Herald's Lake County bureau.

A Mundelein High School graduate, Suveges was in Iraq while researching her doctoral dissertation, Johns Hopkins spokesman Dennis O'Shea said. She worked for BAE Systems, a Maryland firm advising the U.S. Army's 3rd Brigade Combat Team.

Suveges' job involved helping Army commanders understand Iraqis and their culture and society, and to help them avoid inadvertently offending or misunderstanding the Iraqis, BAE Systems reported.

She had worked in Iraq as a civilian contractor the previous year, according to a company news release.

The war in Iraq had actually prompted Suveges to change the focus of the doctoral dissertation she was researching at Johns Hopkins, O'Shea said.

Initially planning to write about how political and economic ideas move across geographic borders, she switched to researching how nations transition from authoritarian regimes to democracies and the impact on citizens, the university said.

"Nicole was committed to using her learning and experience to make the world a better place, especially for people who have suffered through war and conflict," university President William R. Brody said in a message Wednesday night to the campus community. "She exemplifies all that we seek to do at Johns Hopkins: to use knowledge for the good of humanity."

Suveges military and life experiences brought a different and valuable perspective to the department, faculty members said in a news release.

Locker called her friend a complex woman. Suveges had an air of authority about her, she said.

"In a way, she seemed like one of the most adult women in our department," Locker said. "She had already been in combat. She had already experienced more."

Suveges helped people at Johns Hopkins understand the war in Iraq "isn't a black-and-white issue," Locker said.

"We loved her," she said.

Suveges married David Iverson in 2001. They had met in the mid-1990s while she was working toward a master's degree at The George Washington University.

An explosives disposal expert with the U.S. Army who retired in 2005 as a master sergeant, he served in Iraq before she did.

Suveges joined the Army reserves in 1998, Iverson said, and remained in service until 2006. She enlisted because many of her friends were in the military, her husband said, and she liked the idea of service.

That continued when she traveled to Iraq as a civilian contractor.

"She was willing to live in that world to accomplish some noble goals and to affect people," Iverson said. "She thought she could contribute to a fix. She didn't make it, obviously, but she was willing to try."

In addition to her parents, sister and husband, Suveges is survived by two stepdaughters.

Funeral arrangements are pending.