Marine's mom to Mideast
By VICTOR CALDERON
The Salinas Californian
The mother of the first soldier from Monterey County to be killed in Iraq will join a delegation of military families traveling to the Middle East next week to deliver supplies to Iraqi refugees.
On Sunday, Amalia Avila González, mother of Lance Cpl. Victor González of Pajaro, will fly to Amman, Jordan, near the Iraqi border to help deliver $600,000 worth of supplies to refugees from the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
She will join about 25 people who will take antibiotics, vitamins, water purifiers, children's toys and other items. Health-care workers, organizers and others will accompany the family members.
The group also intends to meet with humanitarian and health-care workers in Amman, then travel to the Iraq-Jordan border for a New Year's Day peace vigil, returning to the United States on Jan. 4.
Victor González, 19, was killed in combat at Al Anbar province Oct. 13, barely a month after he'd arrived in the war-torn country. His mother said she is making her trip in his honor.
"We want to show the Iraqi people that (Americans) are not bad people. We've lost sons, too, in this war," she said in Spanish on Wednesday in a phone interview.
González, 44, a Watsonville travel agent and mother of three, said she first heard about the trip through a friend who also lost her son in Iraq. With a support group of mothers who have lost their children, getting by these past two months has been easier, she said. In order to find closure, González said she wants to be close to where her son died.
"We want to see troops, to see how they live and how they get by. That is why this is a 'peace mission:' because we want to find the peace we've been fighting for. We want our troops to come home soon so others don't lose their children," González said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces captured Fallujah, a city 40 miles west of Baghdad in November, taking it from insurgents who had used it as a base to launch attacks across Iraq. The military operation created thousands of refugees who are living without adequate food, water, electricity and health care, said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and CodePink, the two organizations that organized the trip.
González will fly with a few delegates from San Francisco to New York, where she will meet up with the rest of the group before flying into Amman. A late addition to the trip, González said she paid for the trip herself.
Despite recent violence in Iraq, including an apparent suicide bombing Tuesday that killed at least 22 people at a military camp south of Mosul, González said she is not fearful she will be injured during her travels. "I have faith that this will be a safe trip," she said.
"Besides, I have to do this for my son," González said. "Victor was a hero. He cannot fight any more but I'm fighting for him. If he hurt anyone while he was in Iraq, I want to make up for that now."
By VICTOR CALDERON
The Salinas Californian
The mother of the first soldier from Monterey County to be killed in Iraq will join a delegation of military families traveling to the Middle East next week to deliver supplies to Iraqi refugees.
On Sunday, Amalia Avila González, mother of Lance Cpl. Victor González of Pajaro, will fly to Amman, Jordan, near the Iraqi border to help deliver $600,000 worth of supplies to refugees from the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
She will join about 25 people who will take antibiotics, vitamins, water purifiers, children's toys and other items. Health-care workers, organizers and others will accompany the family members.
The group also intends to meet with humanitarian and health-care workers in Amman, then travel to the Iraq-Jordan border for a New Year's Day peace vigil, returning to the United States on Jan. 4.
Victor González, 19, was killed in combat at Al Anbar province Oct. 13, barely a month after he'd arrived in the war-torn country. His mother said she is making her trip in his honor.
"We want to show the Iraqi people that (Americans) are not bad people. We've lost sons, too, in this war," she said in Spanish on Wednesday in a phone interview.
González, 44, a Watsonville travel agent and mother of three, said she first heard about the trip through a friend who also lost her son in Iraq. With a support group of mothers who have lost their children, getting by these past two months has been easier, she said. In order to find closure, González said she wants to be close to where her son died.
"We want to see troops, to see how they live and how they get by. That is why this is a 'peace mission:' because we want to find the peace we've been fighting for. We want our troops to come home soon so others don't lose their children," González said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces captured Fallujah, a city 40 miles west of Baghdad in November, taking it from insurgents who had used it as a base to launch attacks across Iraq. The military operation created thousands of refugees who are living without adequate food, water, electricity and health care, said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and CodePink, the two organizations that organized the trip.
González will fly with a few delegates from San Francisco to New York, where she will meet up with the rest of the group before flying into Amman. A late addition to the trip, González said she paid for the trip herself.
Despite recent violence in Iraq, including an apparent suicide bombing Tuesday that killed at least 22 people at a military camp south of Mosul, González said she is not fearful she will be injured during her travels. "I have faith that this will be a safe trip," she said.
"Besides, I have to do this for my son," González said. "Victor was a hero. He cannot fight any more but I'm fighting for him. If he hurt anyone while he was in Iraq, I want to make up for that now."
