Monday, May 10, 2004

Paying it Back in Blood  

Mexican-Born Marine Earns Citizenship But Not Always Respect

When he was nine years old Carlos Gomez crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico to the U.S. with his father, mother and two sisters. They had heard stories about the opportunities in America, dreamed about them, wanted them so badly they ran through oncoming traffic on the 805 freeway to get to them. They didn't stop until they reached San Diego. Fear, fatigue and La Migra slowly fading into the southern horizon like their homeland.

They stayed. Dealt with the slurs--beaners, greasers, wetbacks. Overcame them. Paid back America's opportunities with hard, menial labor. Made a fraction of what citizens and legal immigrants made--but never complained.

And 12 years later, in Falluja, Iraq, Marine Lance Corporal Gomez would pay it back again--but this time with his blood.

* * *

April would indeed be the cruelest month as T.S. Elliott wrote in his epic poem The Wasteland, especially in Iraq. Nearly 1,200 Iraqis and 125 coalition soldiers would be dead before it was over; much of the violence initiated by the murder of four U.S. security contractors on March 31st.

While driving through the city the men were ambushed, shot to death, their bodies doused with fuel and set aflame by an angry mob. Their remains hung from a bridge leading out of the city.

The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, now in charge of Falluja after taking over responsibility for the Al Anbar province from the Army's 82n'd Airborne just a few weeks earlier, responded to the killings by surrounding the city.

Gomez, built like a bull, low to the ground and heavy with muscle, is a team leader for second platoon, Echo Company of the 2-1 Marines. Their job is to cordon off a portion of Falluja's slums known as the Jolan region. It is where, U.S. military leaders believe, most of the insurgents were clustered.

It is also the area where marines and insurgents slugged it out with the greatest intensity--even after U.S. officials declared a unilateral cease-fire two weeks into the siege, stopping offensive operations but reserving the right of self-defense.

Still, almost daily, Gomez says, he and his company took fire from insurgents using the minaret tower of a nearby mosque.

On Monday, April 26th, the marines have had enough. At half past eleven in the morning, Echo Company's commander orders Gomez's second platoon forward to take houses adjacent to the mosque on the northeast side.

With almost no resistance, they reach one of the houses next to the mosque and go inside. But it doesn't take long for the trouble to start. When three of the marines move up to the roof--insurgents fire on the house with a rocket propelled grenade.

"Then," Gomez says, "Lance Corporal Finncanon comes running down the stairs, yelling, ‘oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,' and I can see that he's missing his left arm from elbow down."

The others marines have taken shrapnel too, but their wounds were less serious.

"After that they just started opening up on us," Gomez says, "From the house next store. Only about ten meters away. There must have been about a hundred of them and only forty us."

The members of the platoon know they have to knock down some of the insurgents' firepower and fast or they'll be slaughtered. Some of bullets, armor piercing rounds, are even penetrating the concrete walls.

Gomez along with Lance Corporals Cruz and Austin climb back up the rooftop. They'll use the height to lob grenades at the other house. But the insurgents are laying down withering fire.

"As we're going up the stairs I can see the rounds impacting the step in front of me every time. The cement was flying in my face."

Once on top, they wait for a lull in the shooting.

"Lance Corporal Austin pulls the pin on his grenade and then throws it," Gomez says, " but ass soon as he tosses it, he gets shot in the chest to the left of his heart. He takes another round in his stomach. I try to pull him back with my right arm, but his flack jacket got caught on the steps. So I move out of my cover position and use both hands. I was exposed for five seconds."

But that was all it took.

"I got shot in the shoulder and then I got shot in the face."

But Gomez has so much adrenaline pumping; he doesn't even know that the 7.62, AK-47 round had pierced the front of his cheek and continued straight through, missing his skull completely. He does know, however, that he has been hit in the shoulder.

"The round went in and when it came out it took out a chunk of my shoulder, I was missing a fist full of flesh. It just felt like somebody punched me, somebody punched me really hard."

But instead of himself, Gomez turnshis attention to Austin.

"I asked Cruz for his knife and cut open Austin's shirt. Cruz covers up the wounds, but we've got no pulse or breathing. So we began CPR. I beat his chest ten times with both hands and Cruz gave him mouth to mouth, still nothing, so we do it again--after the second time, he comes back to life."

Gomez and three other members of his squad carry Austin back to Echo Company's original front line position. Despite their efforts, he will die on the way combat field hospital. Along with Gomez, eleven other marines are wounded that day.

According to U.S. Central Command, since the invasion of Iraq more than 680 American troops have been killed in hostile action and more than 3000 wounded--although one third of the wounded were returned to active duty within 72 hours.

Gomez will not be one of them. His shoulder wound will require intensive physical therapy--so for him, this war is over. He will return to Camp Pendleton in California, his wife Samantha and his two and half year old son Jose Carlos.

But while he waits at the field hospital in Camp Falluja for his helicopter ride out, he says his feelings are mixed. He's happy he'll be able to see his famil, but sorry to leave the men he's fought with both during the invasion of Iraq last year now during these post war hostilities.

"They're my family too," he says. But why did he join the fight in the first place, spill blood for a nation he wasn't born in, a people that sometimes treated him as less than an equal?

"This country gives you a lot of opportunities," he says, "That's why you see so many Mexican immigrants cross the border. Maybe this is the only way I can pay it back."

After his unit returned home following their participation in the invasion of Iraq,Gomez and three other members of his company were naturalized as U.S. citizens by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But even as a war veteran and a citizen he says he still faced prejudice in his adopted land.

"I know this last year--I couldn't stand the way some people looked at me, especially cops. When you've been through war you can look into peoples eyes and see what they're thinking. I could tell the cops were looking at me they didn't know where I had been, didn't know I was a marine."

He pauses for a moment, maybe wondering if it will be any different this time now that he has earned his place with blood.

"As long and you and your family know what you've done--I think that should be enough--but sometimes it's not and there's nothing you can do about it."

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Kevin 11:36 AM