Dedication Distinguished Copter Victims : Armed services: One of the Americans killed in Iraq incident had been cited for heroism. Another earned a medal for meritorious achievement during Persian Gulf War.

Americans killed when U.S. warplanes mistakenly shot down their helicopters were described by relatives and friends Friday as dedicated professionals who had earned commendations for their work.

While a complete list of the 15 Americans killed was not expected to be released until their remains are officially identified over the next few days, the first sketchy details about four of them showed the personal dimensions of the tragedy over northern Iraq.

Barbara L. Schell, for example, was a veteran Foreign Service officer serving as an adviser to the commanding general of Operation Provide Comfort, the relief effort for northern Iraq’s Kurds.

She was cited for heroism 15 years ago for helping Americans evacuate Iran in the weeks before Iranian militants occupied the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 U.S. citizens hostage for more than a year.

Another victim, Army Warrant Officer John W. Garrett, 33, had served in the Air Force during the Gulf War and earned a medal for meritorious achievement. He trained for a helicopter pilot’s job in the Army after the Air Force told him that he was too old to fly, according to his father.

“Even then, he just squeaked through (helicopter school) because he was over 30, but that’s what he wanted,” his father, John Garrett Sr. of Columbus, Ohio, told reporters.

Authorities said that two others killed aboard the Army Blackhawk helicopters were Air Force 2nd Lt. Laura Ashley Piper, 25, of Venice, Fla., and Army Col. Richard A. Mulhern, who was recently selected for a high post in the military coordination center in Zakhu, Iraq, headquarters for U.S. and allied officials helping to protect the Kurds.

The Pentagon did not release the hometowns of Schell or Mulhern.

Mulhern was said to have been en route to his first meeting with leaders of the Kurdish minority that the allied operation was supporting.

Piper was assigned to the 7454th Tactical Intelligence Squadron at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, officials said. No other information on them was immediately available.

Referring to Schell, State Department spokesman Mike McCurry called her “an independent, adventuresome person who had very much wanted the job that she was serving in. She had been very excited by the challenge that this job offered and she was known to her friends as someone with a dry sense of humor and a very warm spirit.”

McCurry told reporters that Secretary of State Warren Christopher had met Schell last August when he was in Alexandria, Egypt, where she was serving as consul general in the U.S. Embassy before assuming her duties in northern Iraq. “The secretary, along with many others here in the department, have been in touch with Barbara’s family to express their deepest condolences,” McCurry said.

Schell, 50, had also held posts in Chad and Damascus. She was accomplished in languages and spoke French, Farsi and Arabic. She is survived by her husband, father and a brother.

The elder Garrett, talking about his son, said that he had been in charge of the communications unit of a C-130 transport aircraft during Operation Desert Storm, helping to save pilots’ lives as a link between fliers and ground personnel. He did not know whether his son had been a pilot or a passenger on the ill-fated helicopter.

“It’s ironic that here he was in a dangerous situation and ended up being shot down by his own plane,” he told the Associated Press. “It’s hard to believe.”