Street in Joliet renamed to honor Staff Sgt. Jose Duenez Jr.

Staff Sgt. Jose Duenez Jr. grew up on Albert Avenue in Joliet, where his boyhood involved an active outdoor life engaged in activities such as playing soldier with other kids in the neighborhood and collecting snakes.

Duenez’s family, city officials and about 100 appreciative residents gathered outside Duenez’s boyhood home for a ceremony dedicating Albert Avenue in his honor Friday.

Duenez was found dead along with four other soldiers March 31 in an armored vehicle that sunk into a bog in Lithuania during a training mission. He was only 25 when he died.

But being in the Army was a lifelong ambition that his father, Jose Sr., traces back to when his son was “a little kid.”

“He wanted to be in the Army and serve his country,” Jose Sr. said before the ceremony that dedicated the street outside the family home as “SSgt. Jose Duenez Jr. Way.”

Duenez’s mother, Leticia Quintero, was not enthusiastic about her son’s military ambitions, recognizing the potential dangers. But she recognized what her son wanted and does not blame the Army for his early death.

“I believe when our time is up it doesn’t matter what you are doing,” Quintero said.

She remembers her son, among other things, as being “a very active little boy.”

“He would hunt snakes and put them in a bucket,” Quintero said. “He would show me his bucket of snakes.”

Quintero described the street dedication as “a bittersweet honor that the city will do for my son.”

Both she and her husband expressed appreciation for the support they have received not only from City Hall but also from the people of Joliet.

Duenez most recently lived in Georgia outside Fort Stewart with his wife, Karen Diaz Duenez, and his 1-year-old son, Jose Duenez III.

“Joliet and Lithuania have showed so much support,” Diaz Duenez said.

Just last week, Diaz Duenez was in Lithuania for a ceremony in which that nation honored her husband and the four other Army soldiers who died in the training mission.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda hosted the ceremony.

“He invited me and presented me with a medal,” Diaz Duenez said.

Duenez had earned eight medals during his seven years of service with the Army, state Rep. Natalie Manley, D-Joliet, noted as she read from a state legislative resolution honoring the fallen soldier.

The resolution recognized particulars from Duenez’s life, including his “active childhood,” an inclination as a boy to dress as “his favorite superhero Spiderman,” and three terms of overseas service in the Army, with the last being in Lithuania.

His death may have been tragic and premature, but Duenez died with his boots on doing what he wanted since he was a boy, an ambition that most people are not fortunate to fulfill.

His mother noted that Duenez was in ROTC all four years he attended Joliet Central High School.

She remembered the weekends that her son would return from ROTC exercises and “he would come back all excited.”

Those and other memories of Duenez live on, and that was the point of the street dedication Friday.

Mayor Terry D’Arcy, mentioned by Duenez’s parents for the support he provided the family, commented during the ceremony on the importance of the street dedication to Duenez.

“May his name live on in the heart of the city he called home,” D’Arcy said.