Soldiers' Families Mark A Year Of Anguish

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Boston Globe
May 11, 2008 By Tania deLuzuriaga, Globe Staff
LAWRENCE - It has been a year marked by prayers, tears, and hope for the families of two soldiers missing in Iraq, and yesterday was no different.
More than 100 people gathered outside the Polartec Mill to honor Sergeant Alex Jimenez of Lawrence and Private Byron W. Fouty of Waterford, Mich., in an hourlong ceremony that included hymns, prayers, and a Black Hawk helicopter flyover. Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of the pair's disappearance in Iraq.
"In my heart and in my head, I know I will see him again," Jimenez's father, Ramon "Andy" Jimenez, told the crowd.
The soldiers, who are in the 10th Mountain Division based at Fort Drum, N.Y., were part of a patrol looking for insurgents planting roadside bombs when they were hit by automatic weapons fire and explosives. Four men and an Iraqi translator were killed in the attack and the body of a fifth was found later.
Military officials announced in June that US troops had discovered Jimenez and Fouty's ID cards in an empty house about 75 miles north of the site of the ambush. They remain classified as "missing-captured" by the military.
"This is very hard, very terrible," said Jimenez's mother, Maria Duran, wiping away tears. "You think, 'Where are they? What happened to them?' "
Since the attack, the army has conducted intensive searches involving 4,000 troops looking for the missing soldiers. Last June, Private First Class Matthew Bean of Pembroke was killed by a sniper while his unit looked for the pair.
"It's tougher for them than for us," said Bean's uncle, Doug, who attended the ceremony in a T-shirt bearing his nephew's image.
"We have closure," he said.
US Representative Niki Tsongas and US Senator John F. Kerry were on hand yesterday to assure the Jimenez and Fouty families that they, too, will get closure.
"We will never lose faith," Kerry said, presenting the families with American flags that had flown over the Capitol.
After the ceremony, most of the attendees took off on a motorcycle honor ride through Lawrence and Methuen. A Mass for the pair was also held last night at St. Mary's in Lawrence.
As well-wishers wandered by after the ceremony to squeeze her hand, Duran said she was grateful for the outpouring of prayers and support.
"You don't feel so alone," she said.
The past year has been purgatory for Jimenez's parents. His father, who lives alone in Lawrence, starts each day with a prayer for his son. Often, he wears a lanyard with photos of Alex dangling from it: In one, Jimenez is a stone-faced soldier; in another, a fresh-faced boy. Duran, who lives in New York, said she often asks God for the fortitude to withstand this ordeal.
"It's hard all the time," she said.
Jimenez attended schools in Lawrence until eighth grade, when he moved with his family to the Dominican Republic. He returned to Massachusetts to enlist in the Army and was on his second tour in Iraq. Friends and family have said that Jimenez loved his job and planned to reenlist for another four-year stint after his scheduled return to Lawrence last June.
In addition to Jimenez and Fouty, two other US service members remain missing in Iraq: Captain Michael Speicher, a Navy pilot, has been missing since the 1991 Persian Gulf war and Sergeant Ahmed al-Taie, a 41-year-old Iraqi-born reservist from Ann Arbor, Mich., was abducted while visiting his Iraqi wife in October 2006 in Baghdad.
 
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