Bookmarked.
Jose Gutierrez
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20030324&Category=APN&ArtNo=303240582&Ref=AR Second American to die in Iraq risked life to come to the U.S.
The Associated Press
One of the first U.S. servicemen to die in Iraq had already risked his life for the American dream.
Like thousands of other Central American immigrants, Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez made the dangerous 2,000-mile journey from his native Guatemala, across Mexico and over the border into Southern California as a teenager.
Gutierrez was hit by enemy fire and died Friday in battle near the Southern Iraqi city of Umm al Qasr, while fighting with fellow Marines, a military spokesman said. He was the only one among them killed.
He is believed to be the second American to die in combat. Second Lt. Therrel S. Childers, 30, of Harrison County, Miss., was also killed in combat Friday.
Gutierrez was 16 when he came to Southern California, without family or friends. Longtime friend Hector E. Tobar told the Los Angeles Times that Gutierrez rode 14 trains to reach the border. Gutierrez was among the lucky ones. He found shelter with an older couple that took in immigrant children.
He dreamed of becoming an architect.
Marcelo Mosquera, a machinist from Ecuador, and his wife Nora Mosquera, a marketing representative from Costa Rica - who became surrogate parents to Gutierrez - told the Spanish-language station KVEA-TV in Los Angeles that Gutierrez "would go after whatever was put in front of him to reach is goal."
The Mosqueras' adult daughter, Jackie Baker, told KVEA-TV that Gutierrez "wanted to give the United States what the United States gave to him. He came with nothing. This country gave him everything."
Gutierrez was an older brother to the younger children taken in by the Mosqueras. Neighbors told the Times he often was seen playing with them and taking them to the nearby McDonald's restaurant.
He was "very helpful and very friendly...nice and courteous," said Dina Purdue, who lived near the Mosqueras' two-story home in Lomita, about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.
Officials from the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala notified Gutierrez' older sister Sunday night. The woman, whose name was not immediately released, lives in a poor section of Guatemala City and was listed as his only next-of-kin in military records, said Guatemalan Consul General Fernando Castillo of Los Angeles.
"She does not have a phone, so it is difficult to reach her," Castillo said. He said Gutierrez' sister hoped to bring her brother's body back to Guatemala.
But social worker Wendy Perlera, who worked with the Marine when he first came to the United States, said she wanted to bring Gutierrez body back to California and hoped to obtain visas for his sister and her husband to come to the United States.
Gutierrez became an infantry rifleman with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, according to Camp Pendleton officials in early September. They did not say when he was deployed to the gulf.
Another Californian, Navy Lt. Thomas Mullen Adams, 27, was killed Saturday when two Royal Navy Sea King helicopters collided over international waters.
Four other marines were killed during the crash of a CH-46 helicopter Friday.
On Sunday, newspapers, radio and TV stations throughout Guatemala City carried stories on Gutierrez. The American Embassy in Guatemala estimates that nearly 1,500 Guatemalans or Guatemalan Americans are in the U.S. military.
Many Guatemalans expressed sympathy for Gutierrez and others fighting in Iraq, but at the American Embassy on Avenida Reforma, activists had decked the trees and fences with white ribbons to symbolize peace.