Army Cpl. Jesse M. Zamora

Remember Our Heroes

Army Cpl. Jesse M. Zamora, 22, of Las Cruces, N.M.

Cpl. Zamora was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Ky.; killed Feb. 3 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee in Bayji, Iraq.

By Felicia Fonseca
Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE — Paula Gonzalez had only one question when Army officials showed up at her Las Cruces home: Which of her two sons was killed in Iraq?

“When you have two over there, it’s like hurry up, say which one,” she said by telephone from her home Sunday as the family looked at pictures of the slain soldier, Cpl. Jesse Zamora, 22, her youngest son.

On Friday, Zamora was killed when a roadside bomb blew up near his Humvee in Beiji, Iraq. A piece of shrapnel flew up and hit him, she said.

As he slipped away, Zamora asked one of his friends to hug him, Gonzalez said.

“It’s just incredible how close these guys are. They love each other so much,” she said.

Her other son, Tyrel Zamora, is stationed in Baghdad, Iraq, and is on his way home to attend his brother’s funeral.

Jesse Zamora was an infantryman assigned to Company B, 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team. He was the sixth member of the Fort Campbell, Ky., 101st Airborne Division killed in Iraq since Wednesday in four separate incidents.

Jesse Zamora graduated from Mayfield High School in Las Cruces in 2002, joined the Army later that year and arrived at Fort Campbell in November 2003.

“He just had a longtime want to be in the military,” Gonzalez said.

He enjoyed being out in the desert near Las Cruces in his rust-colored GMC truck to practice shooting. Memories of his truck got him through tough times in Iraq, where he was on his second tour, she said.

“They always have a dream,” she said. “Some of them have a wife and kid. He didn’t. He had a truck.”

Zamora often would send his family requests for service on his truck — spray the bed liner or paint this, Gonzalez said. He said he would buy the tires when he returned home, his mother said.

Zamora’s most recent request was for his mother to send him a digital camera he had ordered. She packed it up Thursday with Valentine’s Day candy and put it in her Jeep to send Friday. But before she could get to the post office, she was notified of his death.

“I’m one of those (who believes) that everything happens for a reason,” she said.

Zamora outlined his future plans to his mother in an e-mail he sent her the day he died. He said he wanted to work for an old couple who has an electrical business, referring to his mother and stepfather.

“He was funny, he had this huge sense of humor,” Gonzalez said. “He was just a clown all the time. He was just incredible.”

She responded to his e-mail by writing, “the owner is old, but the bookkeeper is not.” She’s not sure her son received that message.

Zamora is survived by his mother and stepfather, Sergio “Nacho” Gonzalez of Las Cruces, his brother Tyrel Zamora and sister Christy Zamora of Phoenix. His biological father, Orlando Zamora, died when Jesse Zamora was 3 months old.

Army Cpl. Jesse M. Zamora was killed in action on 02/03/06.