sgt. jose gomez: death of a solider

Ruby Washington/The New York Times The coffin containing Sgt. Jose Gomez was carried from a funeral home in Corona, Queens, Wednesday, across the street from Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church.

a tragic yet moving tale. a tale of a son's love for his mother-a tale he told his mother of how he was going to school in texas instead of the truth-he was in iraq for his second tour of duty. a tale of a life for his country

Sympathy Flows at Soldier's Funeral in Queens

By MICHELLE O'DONNELL
At Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church in Corona, Queens, Mary, the mother of God, weeps at the feet of her son in the mural over the altar. Yesterday, Maria, the mother of Sgt. Jose Gomez of the United States Army, wept from her seat in the first pew.
"You, more than anyone, understand the pain of the mother of Christ," the Rev. Thomas Healy said in Spanish to Maria Gomez, whose slender shoulders slumped into the Army officer seated to her right as her husband, Felix Jimenez, wrapped an arm around her. "We are all with you in your pain."
But she was really alone and she seemed to know it, weeping and staring blankly at her son's coffin in the center aisle. She had brought him to the United States from the Dominican Republic when he was 3. Twenty years later, on April 20, he was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, during a second tour of duty there.
His death came 31 months after his fiancée, Analaura Esparza-Gutierrez, 21, an Army private from Houston, was also killed by a roadside bombing in Tikrit, Iraq. Three springs ago, Sergeant Gomez had proposed to her. Now both were gone.
Yesterday, church and state rose up, each in its ritualistic glory, to honor the brief life and sudden death of Sergeant Gomez. Father Healy tenderly anointed his coffin with incense, and gave the young man his final blessings. The ladies of Corona — some in veils — filled the pews. Army officers flanked the right side of the church, and a two-star general presented Mrs. Gomez with the purple star and bronze star that President Bush had authorized her son to receive.
Yet it all seemed to do little to lessen the grief of Mrs. Gomez, who appeared to grow smaller as those by her side supported her.
The loss of Sergeant Gomez hit her especially hard because he had always strived to take care of his mother. He was saving to buy her a house. He had called home on April 19, the day before he died, to have flowers sent to her for Mother's Day.
And he had invented a tale that he was working and studying in Texas to hide the fact that he had been ordered to serve a second tour in Iraq, where the danger had been driven home by Private Esparza-Gutierrez's death............

...........At the church, Father Healy said he was concerned about Mrs. Gomez. He stood near the altar, below a statue of the Virgin of Sorrow.
"Twenty-five hundred of these around the country," he said. "Can you imagine?".........