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Slain soldier's mom recalls getting news

BY ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO | Newsday Staff Writer

June 13, 2006

The moment she saw the two Army officers at the door of her Bronx apartment, Rosa Velez knew they had come to tell her bad news about her soldier son serving in Iraq.

Sgt. Jose M. Velez of the Army Reserves' 773rd Transportation Company, based in Fort Totten, was killed while on patrol Friday when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle outside Kirkuk in northern Iraq, the Department of Defense said. Yesterday would have been his 37th birthday, his mother said.

"Any mother knows," Rosa Velez said yesterday of the uniformed visitors to her apartment in the Melrose section Saturday. "As soon as you see two soldiers at the door, you know."

Jose Velez, a father of two children, had been stationed in Iraq about three months. He had been a member of the Army Reserves for about three years.

Sgt. First Class Larry Klass of Freeport, who also is in the 773rd Transportation Company in Iraq, said Velez died about 11:55 p.m. Friday, Baghdad time.

Klass, in an e-mail to Newsday, said Velez was riding as a gunner in a Hummer on a mission. The driver of the vehicle suffered shrapnel wounds to his neck and is recuperating, Klass said in the e-mail.

"My son died a hero; that is what I know," Miguel Velez, the soldier's father, said.

Bruce Hill, a spokesman for the Army Reserves, said that Velez's remains were expected to arrive in the United States yesterday. Funeral arrangements had not been made, he said.

Velez has a son, Christopher, 11, and daughter, Melody, 6, Rosa Velez said.

This story was supplemented with an Associated Press report.