I'm this close to losing my head. Everything's gotten real ugly.
    — Jesus Angel Gonzalez, in one of his final letters to his wife, talking about sand storms ripping apart his tent

    Gonzalez was born in Mexico into an activist family. In high school, he wore a brown beret and styled himself after Che Guevara. He dropped out of UC Riverside and joined the Marines but later told a family member that he had made a mistake by enlisting.
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    Two memories of Jesus Angel Gonzalez

    Approaching the ninth anniversary of the death of my son, my hero Marine Cpl. Jesus A. Gonzalez and like the day I got the fateful news of his death in the Iraqi Freedom War, a war that was not his war, a war of the rich and powerful Republicans led by George W. Bush, I wonder, Mr. George W. Bush allows his conscience to live peacefully?

    A mother who suffers to this day the loss of his son.
    Silvia Berrones-Trevino.

    — Silvia Berrones-TreviƱo
    March 9, 2012 at 1:32 p.m.

    I worked with Cpl Gonzalez prior to and in Iraq. never once did he let me down. Semper Fi.

    Mom he's my hero also.

    — Gysgt Alfonso Davis
    April 3, 2012 at 7:56 p.m.

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    California's War Dead is the Los Angeles Times' collection of stories about the 700 California servicemembers and 474 others based in California who died during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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