In today's (and yesterday's) NYTimes...WE ARE AMERICA! At least, for this one, Bush remembers that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/11/nyregion/11funeral.html
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 fianc?e, 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.
....cut...
Mrs. Gomez bore it all quietly. All Jose had wanted, she said in an interview last week, was to study mathematics and become an accountant. Raised in Corona, amid a warren of brick and clapboard delis, barbershops and bodegas, Jose quickly learned one uncompromising sum: his family's bank accounts could never support his schooling.
"We're poor," Mrs. Gomez had said. She works packaging air fresheners in a factory, and her husband, Mr. Jimenez, is a truck driver. "And if you go in the Army to get your degree, well that used to work out."
...cut...
Mrs. Gomez was supported to the side of the coffin.
"Mi Jose! Mi Jose! Mi hijo!" she wailed. "O Dios!"
She sobbed, and added, moaning in Spanish, "Why did it have to be my son?"
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?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/11/nyregion/11funeral.html
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 fianc?e, 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.
....cut...
Mrs. Gomez bore it all quietly. All Jose had wanted, she said in an interview last week, was to study mathematics and become an accountant. Raised in Corona, amid a warren of brick and clapboard delis, barbershops and bodegas, Jose quickly learned one uncompromising sum: his family's bank accounts could never support his schooling.
"We're poor," Mrs. Gomez had said. She works packaging air fresheners in a factory, and her husband, Mr. Jimenez, is a truck driver. "And if you go in the Army to get your degree, well that used to work out."
...cut...
Mrs. Gomez was supported to the side of the coffin.
"Mi Jose! Mi Jose! Mi hijo!" she wailed. "O Dios!"
She sobbed, and added, moaning in Spanish, "Why did it have to be my son?"
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?"
