Grief
strikes Queens family as G.I. falls in Iraq
By Oren Yaniv AND Leo Standora
daily News Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 18, 2007, 4:00 AM
Jonathan Rivadeneira
The sound of mournful hymns and whispered
prayers for another young New York soldier filled a Queens
home last night.
The outpouring of grief was for Spc. Jonathan Rivadeneira, 22,
from Jackson Heights, who was killed Friday with three comrades when a roadside
bomb ripped apart their vehicle during a combat operation in Baghdad.
Rivadeneira, Staff Sgt. Terry
Wagoner, 28; Spc. Todd Motley, 23; and Pvt. Christopher
McCloud, 24, were with Fort Hood's 1st Cavalry Division's 6th Squadron, 9th
U.S. Cavalry, 3rd Brigade Combat.
Rivadeneira's heartbroken mom, Martha
Clark, last night joined about two dozen other relatives of soldiers killed or
wounded in Iraq to pray for the soul of her only child.
"I prayed when he joined the Army four
years ago, too, but he still went," the mom said, wiping tears from her
eyes.
"I was against it. I told him think
about it because there's a war going on in Iraq."
When he came home on leave recently, she
said her son told her, "I don't want to go back, but I have no choice. I
feel like I'm not prepared for more of this."
"I told him nobody is prepared to kill
or die, but he was depressed. He couldn't wait to take off his uniform. All he
saw was injured soldiers and death."
The mother said her son enlisted at 18 right after graduating from St. Joan of Arc School because
he thought the service would be a pathway to a college education and perhaps a
career in medicine.
He was serving as a medic and was just two
months short of the end of his tour when he was killed, she said.
The mom said her son fell in love while in
boot camp and got married two years ago. His wife, Heather, will come to New
York from Chicago next week for his funeral.