The New York Daily News reports on the first Dominican casualty in Iraq. According to the newspaper, on June 28, the US army confirmed the death of Dominican-born Cpl. Ramona Valdez. Valdez, who was born in the Bronx, was one of six US military personnel – four of them women – killed in Iraq when a suicide bomber struck their convoy near Fallujah last Thursday. The New York Daily News explains that 21-year old Valdez had joined the US Marine Corps when she was 17. She was a communications specialist assigned to the Headquarters Battalion of the 2nd Marine Division and had been deployed to work with Iraqi forces, training them to stamp out the insurgency. Valdez is survived by her mother, siblings and husband, fellow Marine, Cpl. Armando Guzman. Valdez, who graduated from John Adams High School, is the third Dominican killed in Iraq and the first female Dominican.