Fred Gomez
By Wesley Monier
To fulfill a promise made many years ago to a young soldier friend killed in battle, Ferdinand “Fred” Gomez named his oldest son Raymond. The two men vowed that if one of them died, the other one would name his first son after the other.
"I respected him a lot," Gomez said of his friend, Sergeant Raymond Valencia. "He never smoked, he never drank . ... He was just a very beautiful role model."