Only moments after finishing lunch, Army Pfc. Oscar Sanchez of Modesto walked away from the mess tent near Mosul in northern Iraq when a huge explosion erupted behind him.
The Dec. 21 blast by a bomber apparently dressed in an Iraqi military uniform killed 22 people and wounded 69 others. Sanchez, 19, knew several of the injured.
"He felt very lucky and grateful to have walked away from that," said his wife, Tiffany, 19. "I don't know what else he saw over there, but that's the first tragedy in Mosul I heard that was so close to him."
She had to wait until the day after Christmas for a phone call from her husband assuring her that he was all right. Sanchez asked about family members back home, and the couple talked about being apart on New Year's Eve, their first wedding anniversary.
It was the last time Tiffany Sanchez spoke to her husband.
On Dec. 29, Oscar Sanchez was killed during a two-stage attack by insurgents. He was at an observation outpost when a suicide bomber drove a truck into the Army compound with an estimated 1,500 pounds of explosives. As a patrol responded with aid, a second bomber blew up a car filled with explosives. Sanchez died later that day, and 14 others were injured.
In a written tribute to the fallen solider, Lt. Col. Eric Kurilla said that although Sanchez could have ducked for cover to avoid the shrapnel, he instead stood his ground and continued firing at the driver of the truck, forcing him to detonate the vehicle before it crashed into a building, thereby saving fellow platoon members.
"Pfc. Sanchez gave his life so that others may live," Kurilla wrote. "It is incredibly humbling to serve in the presence of such men."
Tiffany Sanchez said she considered her husband to be very brave just for joining the military after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"Nobody understands why their loved one has to be the one" to die, she said. "To me, he was an American hero and he will be my personal hero, forever."
Oscar Sanchez was raised by his father, Santos, after his mother died when he was 11. Relatives said Sanchez had an outgoing personality and enjoyed video games, radio-controlled cars, basketball and skateboarding.
During high school, after working six months at a Burger King, he gave up his job and enrolled in alternative education classes so he could stay home and help care for his 25-year-old brother, Juan Antonio, who has Down syndrome
