Victor A. Garcia didn't support President Bush and thought the Iraq war was wrong.
Yet he joined the Army anyway, looking for some help with college tuition and perhaps some discipline. The specialist was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team) at Ft. Lewis, Wash.
On July 1, he was killed in Baghdad when his unit was attacked with small-arms fire.
Garcia, 22, was the son of Mexican immigrants.
His brothers, Abel and Daniel, married their high school sweethearts at a young age. Victor knew many girls, but had no girlfriend.
"Victor just wanted to get out and see the world," Daniel Garcia said. "Victor was the one destined to do a lot more."
He was an avid sports fan and loved the Atlanta Braves, San Francisco 49ers and Manchester United soccer club in England.
At a memorial service earlier this month at Immaculate Conception Church in Monrovia, childhood friend Michael Avalos of Fontana said, "I understand he was supporting his country, but I wish he had been given the chance to have a family of his own, to live the American dream."
Garcia read books by leftist critic Noam Chomsky. One of his blog entries on his MySpace.com page wonders, "What more evidence do we need?" that the war was a mistake.
Besides his mother and brothers, Garcia is survived by his father and a sister.
In Other Developments:
Two U.S. soldiers were killed Sunday in separate attacks in Iraq, the military said. One U.S. soldier Multi-National Division — Baghdad was killed by small-arms fire during combat operations north of Baghdad, the military said. Another died in fighting in an eastern section of the capital, according to a separate statement. The deaths raised to at least 3,648 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. Iraqi security forces have imposed a vehicle ban in Baghdad ahead of Sunday's scheduled Asian Cup final against Saudi Arabia, from half an hour before the match is due to begin in Jakarta, Indonesia. Military spokesman Brigadier General Qassim al-Moussawi said the ban comes after two car bombs tore through crowds of Iraqis as they celebrated their country's semi final win against South Korea on Wednesday. Fifty people were killed in the attacks. Poland's president said Sunday the government has not yet decided on whether to extend the country's military mission in Iraq beyond the end of the year. "There's still no final decision on this matter," President Lech Kaczynski told reporters. "It depends on a lot of factors, above all on how the situation there is going to develop and how our cooperation with the United States is going to shape up." Last Saturday, Defense Minister Aleksander Szczyglo said he favors extending Poland's mission to the violence-torn country "because, from the security angle, the situation in Iraq certainly is not going to resolve itself that quickly," the PAP news agency reported. Last year, the government extend its mission in Iraq until the end of 2007. Szczyglo said Saturday that a decision on whether to further prolong the mission should come "in the early fall." In Damascus, Syria, the World Health Organization opened a two-day conference Sunday to address the health needs of the more than 2 million Iraqis who have fled the country's violence. The conference brought international relief organizations together with officials from Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq to discuss how to provide health care to the growing pool of Iraqi refugees. Faisal Mekdad, Syria's deputy foreign minister, said his country was facing a huge health care burden from the presence of more than 1.5 million Iraqi refugees and called for outside assistance. "The United States and the international community should do all they can to help the host countries face this challenge," he told reporters on the sidelines of the conference. Syria's Health Minister, Maher Hosami, estimated the health care cost for Iraqi refugees in Syria at $60 million.