Pfc. Francisco A. Martinez, U.S.M.C (KIA)

(reprinted from the L.A. Times)

Pfc. Francisco A. Martinez Flores

Martinez Flores, 21, was two weeks away from becoming a U.S. citizen when he died in Iraq, said his mother, Martha Martinez.

Like many of the California-based soldiers and Marines who have died in Iraq, Martinez Flores was born in another country and came to the United States as a child. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, he came with his family from the Mexican state of Jalisco. Family and friends who saw the young man grow up in Duarte say he had wanted to be "a great soldier" since he was a child.

He attended Maxwell Elementary School and graduated from Duarte High School in 2000. He played football in high school. He was the oldest of three siblings, two sisters and a brother. One of them, Nayeli Martinez, 19, said Monday that her brother liked fixing cars and had a 1954 Ford that he and his father liked to tinker with.

Outgoing, Martinez Flores was surrounded by a large circle of friends, with whom he spent his weekends.

The military helped the young man mature, according to friends and family members. After he joined, "every time he returned, he was very respectful," said a family friend, Cecilia Anguiano, whose daughters grew up with the young man. "His mother said, 'They returned to me a true man.' "

Martinez Flores' death ended his ambition to work as a police detective.

It also left a grieving girlfriend and meant that his mother did not live to see her son married. "I only dreamed of him married, a realized man," she said.

His death was the second tragedy for the Martinez Flores family in two months.

Martha Martinez's father died in Mexico in mid-January. She was there when her son was deployed.

As a result, she did not get a chance to say goodbye.

"I only asked God to return him to me, dead or alive," she said.

"My son went to battle because he was a valiant man and he wanted to go," Martha Martinez said, holding a portrait of him in uniform.

Her son wrote to her in late February. "He was very optimistic. He told me to not be afraid," she recalled. "In his last letter, he told me to pray."

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