TEXAS \u2014 Before Pvt. Isabella Gonzales was sent to Jordan to help fight the war in Iran, she spent 10 weeks in basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe always made me laugh with her, with her stuff, and she always laugh at my jokes,” said Elizabeth Medina.<\/p>\n
That’s where she met Gonzales.<\/p>\n
“And she was very humble, very selfless with me. She made me not feel alone at boot camp,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
They graduated basic training last year in December.<\/p>\n
Medina joined the Texas National Guard and Gonzales joined the Army.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe used to be my battle buddy all the time, and seeing her just die, I was in disbelief,” said Medina.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old was at an air base in Jordan when an Iranian missile struck them. Others from basic training were shocked after learning about Gonzales’ death.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe’d always say like…’Okay, girl, like you got that.’ She was always like, hyping everybody else up. She was just such a nice lady. I can’t \u2014 it’s just so hard to believe that that happened,\u201d said Dominque Douglas on the phone.<\/p>\n
City of Carrollton officials and residents honored Gonzales during a recent City Council meeting on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
She grew up in Carrollton, went to Hebron High School and enlisted in the Army after she graduated last year.<\/p>\n
Medina said Gonzales is more than just fallen soldier, she was a friend.<\/p>\n
“She was more than just a casualty in this war. She was more than just another number. More than just another fallen soldier for me. I remember her and for many others, I bet remember her as someone who was again, very humble, very selfless, full of energy, full of light,” said Medina.\u00a0<\/p>\n
City of Carrollton officials plan on honoring Gonzales by having a community vigil at a local church this weekend sometime after her funeral.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 Before Pvt. Isabella Gonzales was sent to Jordan to help fight the war in Iran, she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1061,2160,132,134,133,1570,102,138,9979,223,1225,82,27,1569,2053,835],"class_list":["post-385411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-top-stories","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-el-paso","tag-marcine-graham","tag-news","tag-public-safety","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}