Army Specialist Carlos M. Gonzalez

Remember Our Heroes

Army Specialist Carlos M. Gonzalez, 22, of Middletown, N.Y.

Spc. Gonzalez was assigned to the 101st Military Intelligence Detachment, 501st Special Troops Battalion, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.; killed Mar. 16 when a mortar round detonated in Tikrit, Iraq. Also killed was Sgt. Amanda N. Pinson.

www.nypost.com -- A 22-year-old New Yorker who had phoned his parents from Iraq to tell them he planned to re-enlist was killed five days later in a mortar attack in Tikrit, authorities said.

Word of the death of Army Spc. Carlos Gonzalez of Orange County, came on the third anniversary of the start of the war.

The Middletown native, who was married and the father of a 22-month-old girl, died March 16 when a rocket blew up his bus as it headed back to a base in Tikrit.

"When we spoke to him, he said was going to re-enlist. I think that says a lot when someone was over there," said his mother, Anna, choking back tears.

"We were very proud that he was re-enlisting," she said. "I didn't know that was going to be the last time I spoke to him.

"But he's home now. We went to Dover [Delaware] airport and brought his body home."

Gonzalez, a communications specialist, "spent four years in the ROTC when he was in high school," his mom said. "He wanted to make the Army his career. It was his life."

Gonzalez's dad, Carlos, said the family will continue to send his buddies care packages of cookies.

"While our guys are still over there, I will support them," he said.

And in September, they will be at Fort Campbell, Ky., where their son, daughter-in-law, Kristina, and granddaughter, Isabella Marie, lived, to welcome back his pals who are with the 501st Special Troops Battalion.

Army Specialist Carlos M. Gonzalez was killed in action on 03/16/06.