Long Journey Home

They were probably the worst words a mother can ever hear.
On Thursday, July 10, Maria del Rosario Duran got the news she has been dreading for more than 13 months as military officials told her that they had found the remains of her oldest son, Sergeant Alex Jimenez, in Iraq.
“I feel so sorry because I lost my wonderful son,” Duran said in between greeting well-wishers and discussing funeral plans in her backyard on Monday night, July 14. “I’ll miss him forever.”
Jimenez, along with Private First Class Byron Fouty of Michigan, had been missing since May 12, 2007, when an insurgency ambush killed five members of their unit and sparked a massive manhunt for Jimenez and Fouty. However, as the military continued to search for the two, their official status was missing in action or captured until last week.
“I was working when my sister Milady said to me, ‘hurry, ask permission to leave because there are three soldiers here, and I don’t think it’s good news,’” Duran told a horde of local and national media from outside her home the day after she found out the news.
“My faith and hope was terminated,” said the mother, who spent many nights with her sisters, family and friends praying the rosary in her living room and hoping for a miracle and her son’s safe return.
During the briefing outside her modest Corona house, Duran along with Alex’s two brothers Andy, 20, and Bryant, 16, fought back tears as they spoke about their son and brother.
“He always liked the Army,” said Andy, who recalled his older brother playing with the popular GI Joe action figures while they were growing up.
Alex Jimenez was born in Flushing, NY, and lived in Corona and Lawrence, MA, for much of his childhood before he moved to the Dominican Republic where his mother’s family lived.
After graduating high school there, Alex Jimenez sent a letter to a U.S. Army recruiter expressing his interest in joining the Army after he turned 18 promising to “fight for the innocent who cannot fight for themselves and for the United States of America.”
“I believe he died doing what he loved to do,” his brother Andy said.
Jimenez was assigned to the D (Delta) Company, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division based out of Fort Drum, NY. Since Jimenez went missing, Duran has been gathering with her family and friends inside her home in order to pray for her son and the other soldiers.
Many of their family members, including Alex’s father Ramon Jimenez, who family and friends call Andy, took part in a mass in Duran’s house on May 12, 2008 - one year after Alex went missing. Duran and Alex’s father are separated, and Ramon still lives in Lawrence, where many family members and friends are also grieving.
“It’s not easy,” Alex’s father said by cell phone in MA before he came down to Queens for the weekend.
Just last month, Duran traveled to Washington D.C. for Memorial Day weekend with her youngest son Bryant, Alex’s father and Jim Wareing, Founder of New England Caring for our Military (NECFOM), who helped arrange a private meeting between the family and President George W. Bush.
“I said, ‘Mr. President, the only thing that we ask is do not stop searching for them,’ ” Duran said shortly after the meeting.
Shortly after the meeting, Duran received a picture of her family with President Bush that he signed with the words “with respect and appreciation.”
In addition to strong family and community support, the Duran family, particularly Maria, has become close with other Queens families who have experienced tragedies with loved ones serving in the military.
“Now, she will know what happened to her son, and she will have a tomb that she can visit,” said Martha Clarke, who lost her own son Jonathan Rivadeneira while he served in Iraq in September of last year.
Clarke said that the agony Duran has gone through for the past 14 months not knowing what happened to her son was excruciating.
“Little by little she will accept what happened.”
While Duran has not slept much since receiving the news with friends and neighbors are still coming through the house on a regular basis, she still finds some time to pray.
“I pray that God will give me and my family the support and strength we need during this difficult time,” Duran said.
Although funeral plans are not finalized, the family expects to hold services during the weekend of July 26 in Massachusetts and then in Queens the following weekend.
Still, less than 24 hours after receiving the heartbreaking news, Jimenez’s brother Andy thanked everyone for supporting his family.
“We just hope that the other soldiers have a happy ending, not a tragic ending like we just experienced,” he said.
Alex Jimenez really wanted to join the Army more than anything else. On the next page you will find the letter he wrote to the Army after he graduated high school.