Gustine Press-Standard -- A Newman soldier dedicated to serving his country was killed Dec. 28 in Iraq.

Army Spc. Tony J. Gonzales, 20, died when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle in Baghdad's Sadr City.

Gonzales, the son of Tony and Marlynn Gonzales of Newman, is the first member of the armed forces from Newman to die in Iraq or Afghanistan.

His parents and three sisters Tuesday remembered their son and baby brother as deeply patriotic and determined to serve his country.

He did so with unwavering pride and honor, they reflected, after growing up with a determination to follow his father's footsteps into the military and later into law enforcement.

"He knew he was going to go to Iraq (when he joined the Army in 2006), but that was okay," said his sister Tammy Runzel. "He wanted to serve his country."

Gonzales, known as "T.J.," was in a Humvee enroute to a mission in Sadr City when an improvised explosive device exploded near the vehicle, his family said.

He had spoken with each of his family members during an extended telephone visit on Christmas Day, and was looking forward to coming home on leave in January.

Instead, Army officers arrived at the Gonzales home Sunday evening with the devastating news that a family's worst fear had become reality.

Funeral arrangements are pending, and will be posted on line when finalized.

==Another news story==

Modesto Bee -- NEWMAN -- Marylynn Gonzales has not taken down her Christmas decorations.

Her son, 20-year-old Army Spc. Tony Jerold Gonzales, was supposed to be home in two weeks after spending about eight months in Iraq.

His mom didn't want her son to miss the holidays, so the Christmas tree, the red bows and the holiday lights were staying up until "T.J." came home.

Gonzales was in an Army Humvee on Sunday when an improvised explosive device detonated near the vehicle in Sadr City, his family and the Defense Department said. Gonzales was killed in the attack.

"I wanted the Christmas decorations to be up for when he came home," his mother said while looking at the Christmas tree in her living room. "Now, I just can't seem to take them down because of what happened."

Gonzales is the 25th soldier or Marine from the Northern San Joaquin Valley or foothills to be killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

On Tuesday afternoon, the family was working on scheduling funeral services for Gonzales. His family gathered in the living room to remember him: a son, a baby brother and a fallen soldier.

"He wanted to go there to help out his country," said Tammy Runzel, 27, one of his three sisters. "He had such a great attitude while he was over there. He was proud of what he was doing."

The youngest of four children, Gonzales went along with almost anything his older sisters wanted him to do, the sisters said. When he was about 8 years old, he would play dress-up with them or would let them tie him to his dad's desk chair and spin him around.

"Until he got bigger than us, he couldn't do anything about it," Runzel said while laughing with her sisters, Megan People, 25, and Shaula Grijalva, 28, and remembering their brother.

A perfect gentleman

Despite the playful childhood hazing, the sisters said their little brother grew up to become a perfect gentleman. They said he always reached to open a door for a lady and always grabbed the dinner check, even when his sisters helped him pay the tab.

He attended Orestimba High School in Newman briefly, but the regular classroom setting just didn't work for him, his mom said. He enrolled in an independent studies program at Freedom Alternative High School in Turlock. He did his schoolwork at home and graduated with a diploma in 2006.

Shortly after his 18th birthday, Gonzales enlisted in the Army and went to boot camp at Fort Knox, Ky., where he also went through tank training. He became an M1A1 Abrams Tank driver.

He also trained to operate unmanned aircraft for the Army but spent most of his time in Iraq on foot patrol and guard duty, his family said.

Hoped for police career

While Gonzales was in Iraq, he used phone calls, e-mails and My Space messages to keep in touch with his parents, his sisters and his girlfriend, Deserae Wakefield. He never spoke with them about military operations and used the time to catch up with the life at home.

Gonzales had hoped to soak up skills in the military he could use in a law enforcement career, said Matthew Clark, father of David Clark, one of Gonzales' best friends.

"He always wanted to be a police officer. He was very involved in the Police Explorers (program with Newman police)," Clark said. "Anytime you saw him downtown, he had that police officer swagger."

He wanted to be just like his dad, Tony Gonzales, 53, who retired after working 26 years for the Los Gatos police.

That was his plan: finish his service with the Army and come back to join the Los Gatos Police Department. But his father said he had a premonition as his son left for his first tour of duty in Iraq.

"As he got on that plane at the Modesto Airport, I just had a feeling he wasn't coming back," his father said.

Bad dreams become reality

While his son was in Iraq, he said, he had two bad dreams in which two military officials came to his front door to tell him his son had died. The bad dreams became a reality when two Army officials knocked on the front door of the family home at 8:45 p.m. Sunday.

"I'll always remember that exact time," he said. "It was something I dreaded. If I could've barricaded the front door, I would have."

On his MySpace page, Gonzales listed his mood as "anxious" and was counting the days until he returned to Newman for some rest and recuperation. He also posted on the Web page a Bible passage: "In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps."

Gonzales had Bible passages about strength and courage tattooed on his right arm, his family said.

Grijalva said her brother is in a better place, one without war. "He went home," she said. "He just didn't go to the home he wanted."

==Another news story==

The Los Angeles Times -- On the night of Dec. 28, Tony Gonzales sat down at his home computer in Newman, Calif. to write his only son an e-mail. TJ was serving his first tour of duty in Iraq, and his father wanted to tell him that their beloved Dallas Cowboys had just lost a game.

There was a knock at the door. Two Army officers stood there, under the porch light.

"I could see the uniforms and the medals," Gonzales said. "I wanted to barricade the door. I just said to myself, 'No, no, no, it can't be.' "

The officers had come to tell Gonzales and his wife, Marlynn, that their son, Spc. Tony J. Gonzales, 20, had been killed earlier that day in Sadr City, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.

TJ was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division. He was the youngest of the couple's four children and, according to his father, "the son that every man would want."

"We'd wrestle, we'd play football, we'd play army. We used to love to watch the Three Stooges," Gonzales said. "He wanted to follow exactly in my footsteps, and that made me so proud."

Gonzales had served in the Air Force and spent 30 years on the police force in nearby Los Gatos. TJ grew up riding around in his father's patrol car and dreaming of one day wearing an officer's uniform. His mother said he would have been a natural.

"He was always a little policeman," she said. "When he was a boy, he was very protective of me and his older sisters." When his father was not at home, TJ would say, "Mommy, did you lock all of the doors?"

As TJ grew older, he developed his own identity. He loved playing the drums and listening to country western music and he got several tattoos, his mother said. But she said he never veered from the principles that his parents valued.

"We always taught our kids that there is a difference between right and wrong, and we said, 'You are going to do right,' " she said.

In 2006, TJ signed up for the Army. He left for basic training a few months after he graduated from Freedom Alternative High in Turlock.

His unit was stationed in Baumholder, Germany. But he was home on leave in early 2008 -- and one day, he told his mother he was going to the mall.

"He said, 'I want to go buy a Western shirt and I want to meet some pretty girls,' " she said. "It took him three hours because he ended up talking to the salesclerk."

The clerk soon became his girlfriend.

Before TJ returned to Germany, he gave Deserae Wakefield, 19, a big teddy bear with a love note written on the bottoms of its paws.

TJ and Deserae fell in love over the phone, Marlynn said. She said she was glad her son paid his own phone bill, because he talked to Deserae for five or six hours each night when he was in Germany. They kept talking after he shipped out to Iraq.

He told his family that he bought her a promise ring to commemorate their first anniversary. He was going to give it to her when he came home, in early January.

When TJ's parents found out he had died, they called Deserae. She came to the house clutching the teddy bear.

"She said, 'I need to show you something that I had gotten for TJ' " Marlynn said. Deserae, too, had a promise ring she'd been looking forward to presenting face to face.

On New Year's Eve, the family gave Deserae the ring TJ had bought her. She put the ring she had bought for him in TJ's coffin. He was buried with it Wednesday at the San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery in Santa Nella.