Family mourns death of soldier in Iraq (Edgardo Zayas)

Twice, Edgardo Zayas escaped death in Iraq when a roadside bomb detonated nearby.

Once, the 29-year-old Army specialist was so close to the blast, his hands and face were singed, Zayas's cousin, Norberto Martinez , said yesterday.

After that, Martinez became worried.

"Last time I talked to him, I said, 'Watch your back, man,'" said Martinez, 35, who said he served in the Army during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

On Aug. 26, Zayas was killed when an improvised explosive device detonated as he walked with his regiment near a checkpoint in Baghdad, Martinez and Army officials said.

"This is something that he didn't deserve," Martinez said in a telephone interview from his home in Springfield, where several of Zayas's relatives gathered yesterday to remember the soldier. "This is something none of our soldiers deserve."

Zayas's body is expected to arrive on Wednesday, and the family plans to bury him on Friday, possibly at the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne, though funeral details remain unclear, Martinez said.

Relatives have been arriving from New Jersey and Puerto Rico, where Zayas's family is originally from, to pay their respects to Zayas, a father of two who joined the Army in 2004. He was assigned to the First Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, Fourth Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division.

His family had opposed the decision to enlist, said Crucita Martinez, Zayas's aunt, who also was at the gathering yesterday.

"I told him, `Please think about this carefully,'" she said in Spanish. "But he'd made up his mind."

Read the rest at the Boston Globe

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