The Express-Times -- A 22-year-old Puerto Rican man with family in Bethlehem was one of four soldiers killed Sunday in Iraq.

Army Cpl. Jason Nunez, of Naranjito, Puerto Rico, was killed when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle as his convoy traveled through the Baqubah province, the Department of Defense announced Tuesday. Nunez belonged to the 82nd Airborne Division based in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina.

Nunez's father, Sam Nunez, lives in the Litzenberger House on Fourth Street in Bethlehem. Efforts to reach the father on Tuesday were unsuccessful. He did not return phone messages.

According to Primera Hora, a newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Nunez leaves behind a wife and two daughters, 1 and 4 years old, in Puerto Rico.

His widow, Nitza Damaris Martinez, met with Army officials Tuesday to make funeral arrangements. Nunez's body will arrive today at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, but it was unknown when the body would arrive in Puerto Rico to be laid to rest.

The newspaper reported Nunez worked part-time as a store clerk. Martinez told the newspaper Nunez enlisted to give his family a better life, but she was against enlisting in the military.

"I know I told him if he would study and I worked but he told me, no, that the Army gave him better options. ... but (the military) wasn't worth it," Martinez said.

Marlene Fernandez, Nunez's mother, told the newspaper her son was not the same once he arrived in Iraq, where he was stationed for eight months.

Fernandez said she was also against her son joining the Army.

"In the Army, there is no future, what there is is death," Fernandez said.