EDINBURG - An Edinburg community and a group of Texas Navy men are coming together to help the mother of a Rio Grande Valley fallen hero.

The man who wrote his biography alerted CHANNEL 5 NEWS about the condition of her home.

Dolia Gonzalez was only left with pictures of her son.

“He wanted to be a Marine since he was nine years old,” she said.

Her son, Alfredo “Freddy” Gonzalez, was a U.S. Marine Corps platoon sergeant who was killed during his second tour in Vietnam in 1968.

“He left on July 15th to go back to California. He called me that he was leaving. That was the last time I talked to my boy,” she said. “I didn’t want him to go back to Vietnam a second time, but he said, ‘Mom, I’ve got to do it, they need me over there.”

Sgt. Gonzalez was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. His legacy can also be seen painted around his hometown of Edinburg.

“I’ve struggled all my life, and I’m still struggling. But I’m doing okay,” she said.

Dolia, along with her dog, lives in an Edinburg home. She said Freddy always wanted her to have one.

“When he passed away, I decided to use some of the money that I got to buy a house, because he always wanted to make me a house. Well, he didn’t get to come home,” she said.

Gonzalez bought the house a year after her son’s death.

“I haven’t done any work on this house since I moved in,” she said.

Dolia’s roof has suffered damaged by storms year after year. But Edinburg councilman Richard Molina said that is about to change.

“After receiving a phone call from some concerned citizens about her being in some dire constraints and her needing some help, I rushed over there immediately,” he said.

Molina said he gathered other friends to help.

“As soon as he said Freddy Gonzalez, I mean, that’s a Marine. I’m a Marine. We help each other out,” CJ&E Construction owner Edgar Carranza said.

Meanwhile, in a Navy warship named in his honor, in Norfolk, Virginia, Culinary Specialist 1st Class Eric Mireles and other 19 Texas Navy men decided to join the cause and help the Gold Star mom.

“It’s actually going to be some of the fellow Texans that are on board the ship,” the member of USS Gonzalez - DDG 66 said. “She’s a south Texas hero, as well as her son. So, that’s the least thing we can do is take care of her.”

Molina said they will soon go out to collect donations and help her at no cost.