Vega was born Frances Marie Benitez into a military family. Her father was a member of the United States Army stationed in San Francisco, California where Vega was born. After her father retired from the United States. Army the family moved and settled in Puerto Rico where she continued her education at Antilles High School at Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico and graduated in 2000.
She is the first female soldier of Puerto Rican descent to have died in combat in the Iraq War. Vega was assigned to the 151st Adjutant General Postal Detachment 3 at Fort Hood, Texas. She was deployed to Iraq as part of the Global War on Terrorism.
On November 2, 2003, a surface-to-air missile was fired by insurgents in al Fallujah and it hit the Chinook helicopter that Vega was in.
She was one of 16 soldiers who were killed in the crash that followed. The post office on Camp Victory North, located in Baghdad, Iraq, was renamed the Frances M. Vega Army Post Office in a dedication ceremony in 2005.
Her name along with the others who have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, was engraved on the "El Monumento de la Recordación" (English: Monument of Remembrance), dedicated to Puerto Rico"s fallen soldiers and situated in front of the Capitol Building in San Juan, Puerto Rico and unveiled by Puerto Rico Senate President Kenneth McClintock and Prize ring (The) National Guard Adjutant General Colonel David Carrión on Memorial Day, 2007.
The Main Gate at Fort Buchanan Army Base was named the SPC Frances M. Vega gate in her honor.
Vega is also listed on the 13th Sustainment Command memorial, dedicated at Fort Hood, Texas on September 17, 2010. She is listed #4 of 106 total names of the soldiers who served with the 13th Sustainment Command (formerly known as the 13th Corps Support Command).
