Army Staff Sgt. Aracely Gonzalez O’Malley

Died October 21, 2010 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom

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31, of Brawley, Calif.; assigned to 307th Integrated Theater Signal Battalion, 516th Signal Brigade, 311th Signal Command, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii; died Oct. 21 in Homburg, Germany, of injuries sustained in a non-combat incident Oct. 12 in Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan.

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Remembered as dedicated mom, San Diego Chargers fan

The Associated Press

Aracely Gonzalez O’Malley’s husband says she joined the Army because she wanted to do something that made her children proud.

In the same year that she was deployed to Afghanistan, she also gave birth to a son. While she could have postponed her deployment, she didn’t. She had wanted to deploy with her husband, Sgt. Ryan O’Malley, 24.

“She did everything for the kids,” her husband said.

Gonzalez O’Malley’s sister Lizbeth Gonzalez of Yuma, Ariz., says she once told her family that she wanted her sons to serve one day, too.

The 31-year-old mother from Brawley, Calif, died Oct. 21 at Homburg, Germany. Her family told the Los Angeles Times that she suffered a brain aneurysm nine days earlier while serving in Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan.

She had been assigned to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.

She enlisted in the Army in 2002 and met her husband while based at Fort Shafter in Hawaii four years later.

The Times reported that friends and relatives remembered her as a proud soldier who was outgoing and a die-hard San Diego Chargers fan.