One Story As Told By An Infantryman
March 25th, 2008, 3:47 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Joaquin
There’s a picture in the March 25 issue of the New York Times of staff Sgt. Juan Campos of McAllen. It’s a photo taken at the McAllen airport as Campos embarked on another trip to Iraq in serving his latest leg of duty overseas.
Campos’ 9-year-old stepson, Andre, is shown wearing the sergeant’s military cap with the three bars signifying his rank in the U.S. Army. His right arm around his stepson and his left arm holding his wife, Jamie, Campos has a rueful smile, and for good reason.
At the airport, Jamie Campos said she lost her usual steely resolove to stay strong in seeing her husband leave yet again.
“I cried and I have never ever cried before,” Ms. Campos told The Times. “It was just really, really weird. He knew and I kind of knew. It felt different. We both knew it was the last goodbye.”
Sadly, that prediction came true. On June 1, 2007, Sgt. Campos died at a San Antonio hospital from injuries received while serving his country in Iraq. At this, the five year anniversary of the wars in Iraq and Afganistan, it’s a sad marker to note that the Rio Grande Valley has lost 28 of its sons to these wars, with the 28th coming just this week with the loss of Spc. Joe Rubio of Mission. Rubio’s was one of four soldiers killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq on Sunday, bringing the U.S. death toll in Iraq to an even 4,000.
Each name, every soldier, belonged to a family, had a story to tell, and many sent dispatches home of the fears and hopes they face daily in Iraq.
“I don’t know how much more of this place i (sic) can take,” Campos wrote to his wife in a Dec. 12, 2006 letter published in The Times. “i try to be hard and brave for my guys but i dont know how long i can keep that up you know.”
Campos was part of the surge to Iraq that has been much reported and analyzed. The sergeant and his men were sent deep into insurgent neighborhoods, The Times reported, where they patrolled on foot, cleared houses, and mingled with Iraqis. Just yesterday, (Monday), President Bush said all those who have died in this war did not die in vain, and that their sacrifices will eventually help to build a lasting peace. Let’s hope so.
It’s clear from his letters that Sgt. Campos, one of our own, a young man from McAllen, always knew he was in danger, but pressed on in the traditions of the finest service given by young men and women to their country.
“The life of an infantryman is never safe..how do I know, well I live it every day,” Campos wrote in his MySpace blog, as published in The Times. “I for one would like to make it home to my family one day. Pray for us and keep us in your thoughts…for an infantryman’s life is never safe.”
For every analysis on whether the surge is working, or which military and political strategies should be taken, we should always remember there are real people behind the numbers. There are young men like Juan Campos, who wrote their last goodbyes.
