An Army sergeant from Joliet was among four U.S. soldiers who were found dead in Lithuania a week after they went missing in an armored vehicle during a training exercise.
Sgt. Jose Duenez Jr., 25, was identified after his body was found Monday along with Sgt. Edvin F. Franco, 25, of Glendale, California; and Pfc. Dante D. Taitano, 21, of Dededo, Guam. The name of the fourth soldier, who was found Tuesday, has not been made public as family notifications continue.
U.S., Polish and Lithuanian armed forces and authorities dug the M88 Hercules vehicle in which they were riding out of a peat bog at the expansive Gen. Silvestra Žukauskas training ground in the town of Pabradė.
The soldiers, part of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, were on a tactical training exercise when they and their vehicle were reported missing March 25, the Army said.
“It’s just like an immense hole in our hearts,” Duenez Jr.’s sister, Eba Jasso, told the Sun-Times while fighting tears. “It feels like a piece of our family is missing, and the only thing that I’ve been telling everyone is that my brother was a firm believer in God. … We know that he is in heaven and that one day we will all be together again.
“I think that’s the only thing that’s keeping us going, is knowing that we’ll be able to see him again one day,” she added.
Duenez leaves behind his 1-year-old son and his wife, Kai. He was born and raised in Joliet with five older sisters.
He wanted to join the Army since before high school and enlisted right after graduation. Since then, he served “with his whole heart and he loved it,” Jasso said.
“He was the most caring person. He was really just an all-around good guy. He was hard-working, he was strong,” Jasso said. “No one has ever had anything bad to say about my brother.”
She recalled her brother being outgoing and enjoying almost all the typical boy activities growing up.
Jasso thought back on Duenez and his friends running up and down their southwest suburban block catching garter snakes in buckets. They’d shoot paintballs and airsoft guns as teenagers. In recent years, Duenez developed a strong passion for fishing and launched a YouTube fishing channel.
“He loved being outdoors. He enjoyed spending time with his family. He enjoyed fishing. He enjoyed spending time with his wife and son. He enjoyed grilling,” Jasso said of her brother, who would have turned 26 next Tuesday.
Nearly every year for Halloween, Duenez dressed up as his favorite superhero, Spider-Man.
“Still to this day, he loved Spider-Man,” Jasso said. “It’s like it was in him to be a hero. It was in him to want to protect people, and that’s how he was growing up. He was the only boy, and he was smaller than us, but he always thought of us first, he was always trying to protect us.”
The Duenez family created a fundraiser, collecting more than $16,000 as of Tuesday night.
The family expressed condolences to the families of the three other soldiers, and they felt strong gratitude to the hundreds of Lithuanian and U.S. soldiers and rescuers who took part in the search through the thick forests and swampy terrain around Pabradė, 6 miles west of the border with Belarus.
The 63-ton armored vehicle was discovered March 26 submerged in 15 feet of water, but it took days to pull it out of the bog.
Lithuanian armed forces provided military helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, unmanned aerial systems and search and rescue personnel. They brought in additional excavators, sluice and slurry pumps, other heavy construction equipment, technical experts and several hundred tons of gravel and earth to help the recovery.
Navy divers maneuvered through thick layers of mud, clay and sediment with zero visibility to reach the vehicle Sunday evening and attach steel cables so it could be pulled out. When just three of the four bodies were found, the divers began a search of the bog area for the fourth.
“This past week has been devastating. Today our hearts bear the weight of an unbearable pain with the loss of our final Dogface Soldier,” Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, 3rd Infantry Division commander, said in a statement Tuesday. “Though we have received some closure, the world is darker without them.”
According to the 3rd Infantry Division, Duenez was an M1 Abrams tank system maintainer and had served more than seven years in the Army. He deployed to Poland in 2021 and Germany in 2022, and he was currently serving in the 5th Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment.
“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, a commander in his squadron.
Contributing: Associated Press