The 21-year-old Vallejo native and the first San Francisco soldier killed in Iraq since fighting began more than three years ago was killed when a roadside bomb exploded during a routine patrol in Baghdad. Rose’s parents, Rudy and Margaret Rose, sprinkled their son’s flag-draped casket with holy water as more than 100 mourners looked on.

A military honor guard fired a 21-gun salute over Rose’s grave while a bugler played “Taps,” its sad strains echoing off the rows of identical white tombstones for fallen soldiers lining the cemetery grounds.

“We’re very proud of him,” said his uncle, Benito Rose of Vallejo. “He’s our hero.”

Rose grew up in a North Vallejo neighborhood and attended first, second and third grades at Cooper Elementary before his parents moved the family to San Francisco.

Ginabel Ruiz remembered her cousin as a “peacemaker” with a shiny grin who was devoted to his parents and two older sisters.

In Manila, Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo offered in a statement his condolences to the family of the Filipino-American soldier, praising him for helping defend democracy. A Philippine consular official  hand-delivered his letter to the family of  Rose in San Francisco. In his letter, Romulo said the Philippines honors Rose’s “bravery and commitment in helping secure a free, stable and democratic Iraq.”

“Christopher represented the best of the Filipino-American -freedom-loving, independent and goal-oriented,” Romulo said.