Justin Garcia remembered

While a teenager growing up in Queens, N.Y., Army Spc. Justin R. Garcia lived through the loss of both his parents.

So the 26-year-old Fort Lewis Stryker Brigade soldier was ecstatic on Father's Day when he learned his wife, Michelle, was expecting their first child. His child, he knew, would grow up with his father to guide him.

They talked of naming their son after Michelle's dad, who was more like a father than a father-in-law to Garcia.

Some in the family now suggest that the child be named after his father.

An Army specialist serving with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Garcia was killed by a roadside bomb Tuesday while riding in a Humvee during combat operations in Baghdad, the Pentagon said yesterday.

"We are expecting in February. He wanted his own son to grow up having a father," the soldier's 23-year-old widow said by telephone Friday from her parents' home in Valley Cottage, N.Y.

"He had a rough life" and was determined that his own children would have a different life, she said.

Garcia is the 143rd member of the armed forces with ties to Washington to die in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

According to the Pentagon, he died alongside one of the highest-ranking U.S. officers killed in Iraq to date. Col. Thomas H. Felts Sr., 45, of Sandston, Va., assigned to the Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kan., died in the same explosion.

The Defense Department released their names Friday, a day after Fort Lewis soldiers attended a memorial service for another Stryker Brigade soldier who was killed Nov. 7 in Iraq, Sgt. Lucas J. White, 28, whose wife lives in Moses Lake. White was a member of the Umatilla Nation and grew up in Washington and Oregon.

In New York on Friday, Garcia's wife gathered with others at the home of her parents, Vincent and Donna Narciso.

The couple married July 1, 2005, so they spent their first anniversary apart when the Stryker Brigade departed for Iraq last summer for a yearlong deployment.

Garcia always found a way to phone or write to remain in touch.

"I actually last spoke with him on Monday," Michelle Garcia said.

"He was excited about coming home in February (on leave) and couldn't wait to see me and his family and meet his son."

Garcia graduated from St. Agnes High School in Manhattan, where he played soccer.

He earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from St. Thomas Aquinas College, where he also played on the soccer team.

"He was a people person. He loved his family and his friends," Garcia's wife said.

Wanting to help his country after 9/11, Garcia resolved to join the Army and did so. He arrived at Fort Lewis in November 2004.

Michelle Garcia declined to discuss the deaths of her husband's parents but noted that he grafted himself to a huge extended family, including her own and the Army.

Her father, Vincent Narciso, told the hometown Journal News newspaper: "He was a good kid. He was sincere. ... He was brave. ... I loved him. He was my son."

Michelle Garcia said her husband "was so proud of what he was doing. The people from Fort Lewis should know that he loved everybody he worked with and talked about them all the time."

Garcia said she accepted the role of Army wife, knowing of the sacrifices.

"I knew since the day I met him that he wanted to join the Army. I had prepared myself for it and knew sooner or later that he would be going to Iraq," she said. "You just prepare yourself in your own way. It's not easy on a relationship, but you do it because you love the person."

In addition to his wife and in-laws, Justin Garcia is survived by a stepbrother and stepsister, Adam and Lisa Lim.

A wake will be held Tuesday at T.J. McGowan & Sons funeral home in Congers, N.Y. Services will be held Wednesday at St. Paul's Church in Congers.

In lieu of flowers, donations are requested to a fund on behalf of the couple's son, set up in Michelle Garcia's name through the Bank of New York, 56 Lake Road, Congers, NY 10920.

"Everyone is telling me that it would be nice to name our son after Justin, but I know what he wanted was to honor my father," she said. "The original decision was his, and he died knowing those wishes. I want to respect them. I don't want to change them."

From the Post Intelligencer

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