'He set an example every day': Body of fallen soldier returns home to Joliet
JOLIET, Ill. - The return of a fallen U.S. soldier who hails from Joliet made for an emotional day on Tuesday, as his family gathered at Lewis University Airport to welcome him home.
Army Staff Sgt. Jose Duenez Jr. was one of four service members who died in Lithuania following a training mission last month.
Community members—overseas and here at home—are now paying tribute to the young soldiers.
What we know
Duenez was assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division out of Fort Stewart in Georgia.
The Joliet native deployed to Poland in 2021 and Germany in 2022. Most recently, he was serving in Lithuania as a member of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team.
Duenez and three other U.S. soldiers went missing on March 25 while conducting a recovery mission to repair and tow an immobilized tactical vehicle. At the time, they were operating an M88A2 Hercules.
Days later, their bodies were discovered inside their sunken armored vehicle, which was located in a peat bog near Pabradė, Lithuania.
"Sgt. Jose Duenez will always hold a special place in our hearts. As both a leader and a Soldier, he set an example every day—always the first to arrive and the last to leave, greeting every challenge with a smile and a readiness to support anyone who required assistance," said Capt. Madyson K. Wellens, Diesel Forward Support Troop commander, 5th Sqn., 7th Cav. Regt. "He was the definition of a silent professional."
Along with Duenez, the deceased soldiers have been identified as Sgt. Edvin F. Franco, 25, of Glendale, California; Pfc. Dante D. Taitano, 21, of Dededo, Guam; and Staff Sgt. Troy S. Knutson-Collins, 28, of Battle Creek, Michigan.
"This loss is simply devastating," said Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie of the 3rd Infantry Division in a press release. "These men were honored Soldiers of the Marne Division. We are wrapping our arms around the families and loved ones of our Soldiers during incredibly difficult time."
In their honor, thousands of people recently lined the streets of Lithuania's capital city, Vilnius, as their bodies were transported to the airport to be flown back to the United States.
Here at home, Gov. JB Pritzker has ordered all entities covered by the Illinois Flag Display Act to fly flags at half-staff in honor and remembrance of Duenez until sunset on Thursday, April 17.
Joliet Mayor Terry D'Arcy is encouraging all residents to take part, too.
"Joliet is a small, big town, and when one family grieves, we all grieve," D'Arcy said. "He was a son, he was a brother, he was a husband, he was a father, and he was a soldier."
Around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Duenez's body arrived at Lewis University Airport in Romeoville, where his family was waiting on the airfield. His American flag-draped casket was surrounded by loved ones before it was transferred to a hearse.
Led by local police officers, a procession then carried his body Tezak's Funeral Home to Celebrate Life in Joliet.
Community members holding American flags stood across from the airfield to show their support.
"Heartache, a lot of heartache," said Dolores Garcia, community member. "It's our soldier, he's from our country."
"We all worry about these young kids," said Silvia Gaona-Padilla, another community member who shares that her son is the same age as Duenez. "Most of them, they all know each other because they play against each other or go to the same high school or grammar school, so they all get to know each other somehow along the way."
Duenez would have turned 26 years old on April 8.
He served in the U.S. Army for more than seven years and was most recently an M1 Abrams Tank System Maintainer.
He is one of six siblings and also leaves behind his parents, his wife and their young son.
What's next
Duenez's visitation will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. on Thursday at Tezak's Funeral Home, located at 1211 Plainfield Road in Joliet.
His funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday at Word of Life Church, located at 1500 Cedarwood Drive in Crest Hill. There will be brief visitation preceding the service, beginning at 10 a.m.
The Source
FOX 32's Kasey Chronis reported on this story.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Boston Globe
GOP tax bill would ease regulations on gun silencers and some rifles and shotguns
Advertisement Republicans who have long supported the changes, along with the gun industry, say the tax infringes on Second Amendment rights. They say silencers are mostly used by hunters and target shooters for sport. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'Burdensome regulations and unconstitutional taxes shouldn't stand in the way of protecting American gun owners' hearing,' said Clyde, who owns two gun stores in Georgia and often wears a pin shaped like an assault rifle on his suit lapel. Democrats are fighting to stop the provision, which was unveiled days after two Minnesota state legislators were shot in their homes, as the bill speeds through the Senate. They argue that loosening regulations on silencers could make it easier for criminals and active shooters to conceal their weapons. Advertisement 'Parents don't want silencers on their streets, police don't want silencers on their streets,' said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. The gun language has broad support among Republicans and has received little attention as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., work to settle differences within the party on cuts to Medicaid and energy tax credits, among other issues. But it is just one of hundreds of policy and spending items included to entice members to vote for the legislation that could have broad implications if the bill is enacted within weeks, as Trump wants. Inclusion of the provision is also a sharp turn from the climate in Washington just three years ago when Democrats, like Republicans now, controlled Congress and the White House and pushed through bipartisan gun legislation. The bill increased background checks for some buyers under the age of 21, made it easier to take firearms from potentially dangerous people and sent millions of dollars to mental health services in schools. Passed in the summer of 2022, just weeks after the shooting of 19 children and two adults at a school in Uvalde, Texas, it was the most significant legislative response to gun violence in decades. Three years later, as they try to take advantage of their consolidated power in Washington, Republicans are packing as many of their longtime priorities as possible, including the gun legislation, into the massive, wide-ranging bill that Trump has called 'beautiful.' 'I'm glad the Senate is joining the House to stand up for the Second Amendment and our Constitution, and I will continue to fight for these priorities as the Senate works to pass President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill,' said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who was one of the lead negotiators on the bipartisan gun bill in 2022 but is now facing a primary challenge from the right in his bid for reelection next year. Advertisement If the gun provisions remain in the larger legislation and it is passed, silencers and the short-barrel rifles and shotguns would lose an extra layer of regulation that they are subject to under the National Firearms Act, passed in the 1930s in response to concerns about mafia violence. They would still be subject to the same regulations that apply to most other guns — and that includes possible loopholes that allow some gun buyers to avoid background checks when guns are sold privately or online. Larry Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who supports the legislation, says changes are aimed at helping target shooters and hunters protect their hearing. He argues that the use of silencers in violent crimes is rare. 'All it's ever intended to do is to reduce the report of the firearm to hearing safe levels,' Keane says. Speaking on the floor before the bill passed the House, Rep. Clyde said the bill restores Second Amendment rights from 'over 90 years of draconian taxes.' Clyde said Johnson included his legislation in the larger bill 'with the purest of motive.' 'Who asked for it? I asked,' said Clyde, who ultimately voted for the bill after the gun silencer provision was added. Clyde was responding to Rep. Maxwell Frost, a 28-year-old Florida Democrat, who went to the floor and demanded to know who was responsible for the gun provision. Frost, who was a gun-control activist before being elected to Congress, called himself a member of the 'mass shooting generation' and said the bill would help 'gun manufacturers make more money off the death of children and our people.' Advertisement Among other concerns, control advocates say less regulation for silencers could make it harder for law enforcement to stop an active shooter. 'There's a reason silencers have been regulated for nearly a century: They make it much harder for law enforcement and bystanders to react quickly to gunshots,' said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. Schumer and other Democrats are trying to convince the Senate parliamentarian to drop the language as she reviews the bill for policy provisions that aren't budget-related. 'Senate Democrats will fight this provision at the parliamentary level and every other level with everything we've got,' Schumer said earlier this month.
Boston Globe
5 hours ago
- Boston Globe
‘Humanitarian rescue' of migrants, or the EU's dirty work?
Though illegal under international law, the Libyan capture of migrants on the Mediterranean Sea has become commonplace in recent years as the EU has outsourced its effort to stop refugees from crossing its borders. Of course, Europe is not alone in this effort; Australia detains undocumented migrants in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Under the Obama administration, the American government paid the Mexican government to detain undocumented people trying to enter the United States. The Trump administration has since gone a big step further: shipping hundreds of undocumented people from US soil to a notoriously brutal mega-prison in El Salvador. Migrant prisoners sit on the floor at Sabah Detention Center. Pierre Kattar / Mohammed David /The Outlaw Ocean Project Candé's story unfolds over the first three episodes of the new season of For more than a decade, the EU has supplied the coast guard cutters, supplies for detention centers, aerial intelligence, and vehicles that the Libyans use to capture migrants crossing the Mediterranean hoping for a better life. Efficient and brutal, the at-sea capture and internment of these migrants in prisons in and around Tripoli is what European Union officials hail as part of a successful partnership with Libya in their 'humanitarian rescue' efforts across the Mediterranean. But the true intent of this joint campaign, according to many human rights advocates, legal experts, and members of the European Parliament, is less to save migrants from trafficking or drowning than to stop them from reaching European shores. A handout from on Frontex aerial drones operating on the Mediterranean to locate migrant boats for the purpose of blocking them from entering Europe. Ed Ou//The Outlaw Ocean Project Though the Libyan Coast Guard routinely opens fire on migrant rafts, has been tied by the United Nations to human trafficking and murder, and is now run by militias, it continues to draw strong EU support. Since at least 2017, the EU, led by Italy, has trained and equipped the Libyan Coast Guard to serve as a proxy maritime force, whose central purpose is to stop migrants from reaching European shores. As part of a broader investigation, a reporter for The Outlaw Ocean Project, Ed Ou, spent several weeks in 2021 aboard a Doctors Without Borders vessel, filming its attempts to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean. The work is a life-or-death race. While the humanitarian ship tries to rescue migrants and take them to safety in Europe, the far faster, bigger, and more aggressive Libyan Coast Guard ships try to get to the migrants first so they can instead arrest them and return them to prisons in Libya. The EU has long denied playing an active role in this effort, but the reporters filmed drones operated by Frontex that are used to alert the Libyans to the exact location of migrant rafts. An aid worker on a MSF ship keeps an eye on a Libyan Coast Guard vessel cutting across their bow at high speed. Ed Ou//The Outlaw Ocean Project '[Frontex] has never engaged in any direct cooperation with Libyan authorities,' the Frontex press office said in a statement responding to requests for comment on the investigation. But a mounting body of evidence collected by European journalists and nongovernmental organizations suggests that Frontex's involvement with the Libyan authorities is neither accidental nor limited. In 2020, for instance, Aside from the EU role in helping Libya capture migrants at sea, the UN as well as humanitarian and human rights groups have roundly criticized European authorities for their role in creating and subsidizing a gulag of brutal migrant prisons in Libya. The EU has provided Libya with coast guard cutters, SUVs, and buses for moving captured migrants to prison. For the EU, the challenge of how best to handle desperate migrants fleeing hardships in their native countries will only grow in coming years. Climate change is expected to displace 150 million people across the globe in the next 50 years. Rising seas, desertification, and famine promise to drive desperate people to global north countries like the US and Europe, testing the moral character and political imagination of these wealthier nations. These factors were especially palpable for Aliou Candé, who grew up on a farm near the remote village of Sintchan Demba Gaira, Guinea-Bissau, a place without basic amenities like plumbing or electricity. Candé had a reputation as a dogged worker, who avoided trouble of any kind. 'People respected him,' his brother Jacaria said. In May 2021, journalists for The Outlaw Ocean Project reported from Libya, the Mediterranean, and Guinea Bissau to piece together the story of Aliou Candé. They spoke with friends, relatives, community leaders, and other prisoners held in cell four of Al Mabani to understand the circumstances leading up to his death. Critically, Candé's uncle had contacts for Candé's family back in Guinea-Bissau, and we were able to begin to put together a portrait. But the 28-year-old would become a climate migrant. Droughts in Guinea-Bissau had become more common and longer, flooding became more unpredictable and damaging, and Candé's crops — cassava, mangoes, and cashews — were failing and his children were going hungry. Milk production from his cows was so meager that his children were allowed to drink it just once a month. The shift in climate had brought more mosquitos, and with them more disease. He believed there was only one way to improve their conditions: to go to Europe. His brothers had done it. His family encouraged him to try. In the late summer of 2019, he set out for Europe with six hundred Euros. He told his wife he was not sure how long he'd be away, but he did his best to be optimistic. 'I love you,' he told her, 'and I'll be back.' In January 2020, he arrived in Morocco, where he tried to pay for a passage on a boat to Spain, but learned that the price was three thousand Euros, much more than he had. Candé then headed to Libya, where he could book a cheaper raft to Italy. In February 2021, he and more than a hundred other migrants pushed off from the Libyan shore aboard an inflatable rubber raft. After their boat was detected by the Libyan Coast Guard, the migrants were taken back to land, loaded by armed guards into buses and trucks, and driven to Al Mabani, which is Arabic for 'the buildings.' Candé was not charged with a crime or allowed to speak to a lawyer, and he was given no indication of how long he'd be detained. In his first days there, he kept mostly to himself, submitting to the grim routines of the place. The prison was controlled by a militia that euphemistically calls itself the Public Security Agency, and its gunmen patrolled the hallways. Cells were so crowded that the detainees had to sleep in shifts. In a special room, guards hung migrants upside from ceiling beams and beat them. In an audio message recorded on a hidden cell phone, Candé made a plea to his family to send the ransom for his release. In the early hours of April 8, 2021, he was shot to death when guards fired indiscriminately into a cellblock of detainees during a fight. His death went uninvestigated, his killer unpunished. Aliou Candé was buried in an overcrowded migrant cemetery in Tripoli, more than 2,000 miles from his family in Guinea-Bissau. Bir al-Osta Milad Cemetery where Aliou Candé and other dead migrants are buried. Pierre Kattar/The Outlaw Ocean Project One month after Candé's death, a team of four reporters from the Outlaw Ocean Project traveled to Libya to investigate. Almost no Western journalists are permitted to enter Libya, but, with the help of an international aid group, they were granted visas. Initially, Libyan officials said the team could visit Al Mabani, but after a week in Tripoli it became clear that this would not happen. So the journalists found a hidden spot on a side street, a half-mile from the detention center, and launched a small drone. The drone made it to the facility unnoticed, and captured close-ups of the prison's open courtyard. The team also interviewed dozens of migrants who had been imprisoned with Candé at the same detention center. A week into the investigation, the lead reporter, Ian Urbina, was speaking with his wife from his hotel room in Tripoli when he heard a knock at the door. Upon opening it, he was confronted by a dozen armed men who stormed into the room. He was immediately forced to the ground, a gun pressed to his forehead, and a hood placed over his head. What followed was a violent assault: The journalist sustained broken ribs, facial injuries, and internal trauma after being kicked repeatedly. Other members of the team — including an editor, photographer, and filmmaker — were also detained. The group was blindfolded, separated, and interrogated for hours at a time. Under Libyan law, authorities may detain foreign nationals indefinitely without formal charges. The US State Department became involved after the journalist's wife, who had heard the commotion over the phone, raised the alarm. American officials quickly identified the detaining authority and began negotiating for the team's release. After six days in custody, the team was unexpectedly told they were free to leave. No formal charges were filed and no official explanation for their detention was provided. They were lucky. The experience — deeply frightening but mercifully short — offered a glimpse into the world of indefinite detention in Libya. With no explanation from the government, fanfare by aid groups, nor coverage by domestic or foreign media, Al Mabani officially closed on January 13, 2022. In its roughly 12-month lifespan, the prison became emblematic of the unaccountable nature of Libya's broader detention system. The quiet shuttering of Al Mabani illustrates the ever-shifting nature of incarceration in Libya and how such transience makes protection of detainees nearly impossible. In the same month that Al Mabani was closed, the team behind the reporting presented details of their investigation to the European Parliament's human rights committee, and outlined the EU's extensive support for Libya's migration control apparatus. European Commission representatives took issue with the reporters' characterization of the crisis. 'We are not funding the war against migrants,' said Rosamaria Gili, the Libya country director at the European External Action Service. 'We are trying to instill a culture of human rights.' And yet, just a week later, Henrike Trautmann, a representative of the European Commission, told lawmakers that the EU was going to provide five more vessels to the Libyan Coast Guard to bolster its ability to intercept migrants on the high seas. A small wooden boat packed with refugees waving and smiling with elation after being found by MSF aid workers. Ed Ou//The Outlaw Ocean Project 'We know the Libyan context is far from optimal for this,' Trautmann conceded. 'We think it's still preferable to continue to support this than to leave them to their own devices.' Meanwhile, the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean continues. At least two thousand migrants died in 2024 while making this perilous passage, according to the UN, and, during the same period, the Libyan Coast Guard captured an additional twenty thousand that were brought back to prisons like Al Mabani in and around Tripoli. In February of this year, Libyan authorities held a training exercise with the EU border officials. The Trump administration has also taken note: In May, The status of both of those plans remains unclear.
San Francisco Chronicle
10 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
How the US bombarded Iranian nuclear sites without detection
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — It was an unprecedented attack years in the making, with some last-minute misdirection meant to give the operation a powerful element of surprise. U.S. pilots dropped 30,000-pound bombs early Sunday on two key underground uranium enrichment plants in Iran, delivering what American military leaders believe is a knockout blow to a nuclear program that Israel views as an existential threat and has been pummeling for more than a week. American sailors bolstered the surprise mission by firing dozens of cruise missiles from a submarine toward at least one other site. Dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, U.S. officials say the plan was characterized by a 'precision strike' that 'devastated the Iranian nuclear program,' even as they acknowledged an assessment was ongoing. For its part, Iran denied that any significant damage had been done, and the Islamic Republic pledged to retaliate. Taking off from the U.S. heartland, B-2 stealth bombers delivered a total of 420,000 pounds of explosives, aided by an armada of refueling tankers and fighter jets — some of which launched their own weapons. U.S. officials said Iran neither detected the inbound fusillade, nor mustered a shot at the stealthy American jets. The operation relied on a series of deceptive tactics and decoys to maintain the secrecy, U.S. officials said hours after the attack, which was preceded by nine days of Israeli attacks that debilitated Iran's military leadership and air defenses. A decoy plan Even before the planes took off, elements of misdirection were already in play. After setting parts of the plan in motion, Trump publicly announced Thursday that he'd make a decision within two weeks on whether to strike Iran — ostensibly to allow additional time for negotiations, but in actuality masking the impending attack. One group of B-2 stealth bombers traveled west from Missouri on Saturday as decoys, drawing the attention of amateur plane spotters, government officials and some media as they headed toward a U.S. air base in the Pacific. At the same time, seven other B-2s carrying two 'bunker buster' bombs apiece flew eastward, keeping communications to a minimum so as not to draw any attention. Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at Sunday's briefing that it was all "part of a plan to maintain tactical surprise' and that only 'an extremely small number of planners and key leaders' knew about it in Washington and Florida, where U.S. Central Command is based. After 18 hours of furtive flying that required aerial refueling, the armed B-2 Spirit bombers, each with two crew members, arrived on time and without detection in the Eastern Mediterranean, from where they launched their attack runs. Before crossing into Iran, the B-2s were escorted by stealthy U.S. fighter jets and reconnaissance aircraft. A graphic released by the Pentagon showed the flight route as passing over Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. It was unclear whether those countries were notified of the U.S. overflight in advance. Most U.S. lawmakers were also kept in the dark, with some Republicans saying they were provided a brief heads-up by the White House before the strike. 'Our B-2s went in and out and back without the world knowing at all,' Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters Sunday. A multifaceted attack About an hour before the B-2s entered Iran, Caine said that a U.S. submarine in the region launched more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles against key targets, including a site in Isfahan where uranium is prepared for enrichment. As the U.S. bombers approached their targets, they watched out for Iranian fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles, but encountered none. At 6:40 p.m. in Washington and 2:10 a.m. in Tehran, the first B-2 bomber dropped its pair of GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrators on the deeply buried Fordo uranium enrichment plant. It was the first time these so-called 'bunker busters' had ever been used in combat. Each 30,000-pound bomb is designed to burrow into the ground before detonating a massive warhead. The Fordo site received the bulk of the bombardment, though a couple of the enormous bombs were also dropped on a uranium enrichment site at Natanz. The U.S. bombs fell for about half an hour, with cruise missiles fired from submarines being the last American weapons to hit their targets, which included a third nuclear site at Isfahan, Caine said. Both Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog said there were no immediate signs of radioactive contamination around the sites. A look at the numbers The mission included: — 75 precision-guided weapons: these included 14 GBU-57 'bunker buster' bombs deployed by the seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, and more than two-dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from a U.S. submarine. — 125 aircraft, including the B-2 bombers, fighter jets and refueling planes. A female pilot Hegseth said Sunday that 'our boys in those bombers are on their way home right now.' But a U.S. official said one woman was among those piloting the B-2 bombers. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the mission publicly. A bit of history Caine said the use of the bunker-buster bombs made the mission historic, as did other elements. 'This was the largest B-2 operational strike in U.S. history, and the second longest B-2 mission ever flown, exceeded only by those in the days following 9/11," he told reporters Sunday. ___ Lolita C. Baldor in Narragansett, Rhode Island and Nicholas Ingram in Knob Noster, Missouri, contributed reporting. Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina.
