Saturday, November 3, 2012 Iraq/Afghanistan and More: Mexican Marine
Through heavily accented spanglish the first thing he ever said to me was, “I am your Corporal and I do not like the dick sucking.” I would come to later find that he had a robot black heart tattooed over his real heart. I was eighteen years old and standing at the position of attention. I replied, “I do like the dick sucking but to each his own Corporal.” My roommate was also new to the unit and had Mexican heritage, he bit his lip in fear but I was confident that the Corporal would not comprehend my translation. The Corporal was a light skinned Mexican, he was built of lean muscle, he ran Iron Man competitions for fun and he was my first real squad leader. I was at home. Somewhere in the not too distant future both of the men standing with me in that room would be shot full of bullets in their legs, the squad leader’s leg almost blown in half and my roommate’s calf’s would look like a shark took a snack as he stumbled into our overpowered house with his finger laying down full automatic survival.
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After the wounded had been extracted, I picked up the Bandito’s helmet. I looked to a full moon and wondered if there was any significance in this? My hero had been killed and my teacher was off to the hospital. I reached in his helmet and picked out a Spanish prayer card he had tucked into the webbing. I stuck it into the webbing of my helmet and left the war an untouched atheist. I will visit the Bandito in Mexico next month for the first time since we were Marines, where he is fighting for his country in the drug war. He is my last interview for the film.
Read the entire piece at the above link
Through heavily accented spanglish the first thing he ever said to me was, “I am your Corporal and I do not like the dick sucking.” I would come to later find that he had a robot black heart tattooed over his real heart. I was eighteen years old and standing at the position of attention. I replied, “I do like the dick sucking but to each his own Corporal.” My roommate was also new to the unit and had Mexican heritage, he bit his lip in fear but I was confident that the Corporal would not comprehend my translation. The Corporal was a light skinned Mexican, he was built of lean muscle, he ran Iron Man competitions for fun and he was my first real squad leader. I was at home. Somewhere in the not too distant future both of the men standing with me in that room would be shot full of bullets in their legs, the squad leader’s leg almost blown in half and my roommate’s calf’s would look like a shark took a snack as he stumbled into our overpowered house with his finger laying down full automatic survival.
...
After the wounded had been extracted, I picked up the Bandito’s helmet. I looked to a full moon and wondered if there was any significance in this? My hero had been killed and my teacher was off to the hospital. I reached in his helmet and picked out a Spanish prayer card he had tucked into the webbing. I stuck it into the webbing of my helmet and left the war an untouched atheist. I will visit the Bandito in Mexico next month for the first time since we were Marines, where he is fighting for his country in the drug war. He is my last interview for the film.
Read the entire piece at the above link
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