Text size:

Fatal return to Iraq

Soldier from Corona killed by roadside bomb in Baghdad never told his mom about his second tour

BY GRAHAM RAYMAN | Newsday Staff Writer

May 3, 2006

When Jose Gomez was recalled by the U.S. Army last year and sent back to Iraq for a second tour, he knew his mother would be afraid for him. So he told her a story: He was attending school in Texas.

Last weekend, Maria Gomez, 54, learned the truth when two soldiers arrived at her Corona, apartment and told her that her son had been killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

"He didn't want her to worry," Gomez's stepfather, Felix Jimenez, 45, said yesterday.

On his first tour, his family said, Gomez lost his fiancee when she was killed while serving in Iraq in 2003.

Gomez, 23, a reserve sergeant with the U.S. Army's Fourth Infantry Division, was one of two soldiers killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on April 28. Gomez, manning the machine gun on a Humvee, survived one roadside bomb before the second bomb detonated, Jimenez said.

In the modest, two-bedroom apartment in Corona where the Dominican immigrant grew up, Maria Gomez paged through photos of her son yesterday and spoke of his conscientious nature. "He was simple, he was thoughtful, he was everything to me," she said. She said she earns $9 an hour packing air fresheners at a Long Island plant. "He never forgot my birthday, and always sent me flowers."

Jimenez, a truck driver for the city Department of Environmental Protection, spoke of his love for his stepson, but he also expressed strong views on the war. "I don't agree with it," he said. "It's not worth it. We're fighting and dying for nothing."

Hoping to raise money for a college education, Gomez joined the U.S. Army in 2000, soon after he graduated from Newtown High School in Elmhurst.

"He wanted to study, and we were poor, so I thought that it was a good idea for him to join," Maria Gomez said.

At basic training in Fort Hood, Texas, he met Ana Laura Esparza Gutierrez, 21, a private first class from Houston. The couple became engaged in 2003 while they were both serving in Iraq, where Gomez was a mechanic working on Bradley fighting vehicles and Gutierrez was a military police officer.

On Oct. 1, 2003, Gutierrez was killed by a bomb blast along with two other soldiers. Rather than attending a wedding, Gomez attended her funeral in Texas.

"He never talked about his feelings afterward," Jimenez said, nodding at photographs of a smiling Gutierrez stacked on top of the television. "He kept them close to his chest. He was always very private."

It was in part the loss of Gutierrez that led Gomez to decide not to re-enlist in 2004 when his term was up and to pursue a career in accounting, his family said. He left active duty and came home to Corona, where he met Marie Canario, 21, a student at Suffolk Community College, while they were both shopping in the Queens Center Mall.

In 2005, the Army recalled Gomez from reserve status and sent him back to Iraq, Canario said yesterday.

"He found out on a Thursday and had to go on a Monday," she said. "He had to go, but I don't think he wanted to go. I was crying and upset, but he said, 'Don't worry about me.'"

Before he left, the couple became engaged. Gomez took Canario to a jewelry store where he showed her a selection of 14 rings and asked her to choose. "He never liked to make those kinds of decisions," she said.

While in the Army, Gomez dutifully deposited money in his mother's bank account, often his entire paycheck, his mother said. But she questioned why his checks still said 'Army' when she thought he was out of the service.

Not wanting her to worry, she said, her son had concocted the story that he was in school in Texas, when he was not only in the Army, but also serving in Iraq. It was only when the two soldiers came to the apartment to tell her that her son was dead that she learned the truth.

While he was in Iraq, Canario said she spoke by phone with Gomez constantly. Last Thursday was their final conversation. "He said he was tired," she said. "We talked about the flowers he wanted to get his mom for Mother's Day."

While details are not finalized, Gomez's funeral will likely be held early next week, his family said. The family is waiting the arrival of Gomez's older brother, Severino Peralta, 27, of Santo Domingo. Gomez will be buried in St. Michael's Cemetery in Astoria, Jimenez said.