Family, friends remember Henderson soldier killed 10 years ago in Iraq
Ten years after her son was killed in Iraq and days after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s remarks about a Muslim Gold Star Mother’s silence at the Democratic National Convention made headlines, Henderson Gold Star Mother Marina Vance said Tuesday her son’s service wasn’t about politics or religion.
Instead it was about his decision to join the Army after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to defend the nation’s freedom like the sons and daughters of Blue Star Mothers today.
“I don’t mind Donald Trump. He may say something from his mouth about the Gold Stars. Everybody’s got their different opinions,” Vance said before heading to the grave site where her son, Spc. Ignacio “Nacho” Ramirez, is buried at Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City.
“I don’t get involved in politics. It’s not me,” she said. “I’m more for what we are going to do to take care of the Blue Stars and the kids that are out there.”
Ramirez, 22, was killed Aug. 9, 2006, when a roadside bomb exploded in Ramadi, which one speaker at Tuesday’s remembrance described as “the most dangerous city on Earth” at the time. A student-athlete, Ramirez graduated from Basic High School in Henderson in the class of 2002.
He died during the year Nevada mourned its most post-9/11 war deaths, 17, topping the 16 who died in 2005. In all, there have been 79 soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen with ties to Nevada who have died in the nation’s overseas wars on terrorism.
Vance said her son believed in “helping everybody.”
“If you needed a shoulder to cry on or ears to listen, that would be Nacho,” she said. “When it happened on 9/11, he said he wanted to go.”
Standing by his grave marker adorned with roses and two open bottles of Corona beer, Vance said she has memories of her son that nobody can take away. “Right now, Nacho has hands on his heart for me,” she said. “Believe me, I don’t want no parent to feel the horror to get the knock on the door, ever.”
His presence in Ramadi was a testament to his courage, said Navy veteran Kathleen Dussault, who spoke about Ramirez’s service and sacrifice.
Nacho “as he was known to his buddies,” she said, “was a hero and a patriot … With a sense of humor.”
Befitting his character, near the end of the remembrance ceremony, with flags held by the Nevada Patriot Guard Riders flapping in the breeze, sprinklers came on and showered an area where the throng had gathered.
Vance didn’t care. It made people laugh.
“My boy was a happy boy, a smiley boy,” she said.
Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Find @KeithRogers2 on Twitter.
