Coming Home in Sinaloa

No wonder it’s taken so much trouble to get the “big media” to pay attention to the real cost of the War Against Iraq.  Those guys are sitting in Washington or New York, wringing their hands over the price of gasoline, or looking at statistics.  None of their kids are there, and no one they know — it’s poor country kids, and kids from places no one ever heard of that are being buried around the country.  Or fleeing the country.  It’s hard to recognize what the war really means in New York.  It’s a different story in  a town of 4300… especially when the town is Sinaloa.

My translation isn’t the best — I plead constant interruptions — but for those of you who can’t read Spanish, here is Juan Veledíaz in today’s El Universal.

GUASAVE, Sinaloa – When Idelfonso Ortiz Cabrera received a “invitation” from the United States Army to visit the Luke recruiting station in Phonenix, Arizona where he had been residing at the time, he pack up his belongings, crossed the border at Nogales and returned to the north Sinaloa town of Burrión, where he was born 18 years ago. .

In this community six kilometers south of Guasave it is difficult to find a family who does not have at least one family member who is a legal resident or citizen of the United States. Not only has the community been a departure point for migrants for the last several decades, but many of those living in the U.S. maintain a residence here, or come back regularly to visit relatives.

Idelfonso stands 1.80 meters high, with a mustache and “cholo-syle” haircut. His corpulence belies his shyness, especially when talking about talking about the reasons he returned to Phoenix after he, and other young Mexicans began receiving “invitations” from United States Army recruiters.

First, there were fliers seeking recruits being handed out to Latino-looking youths at shopping centers. They originally offered citizenship in return for a year’s service in Irak. That was then… now, they are requiring a year and a half in Iraq.

Idelfonso said he was not going to fight in a war that was not Mexico’s war. It has nothing to do with him, or his country. He packed his bags, took out his car keys and drove back to live with his parents in El Burrión.

He is not the only one in this small town. Carlos Mario Perez came back two years ago, as the the conditions for American soldiers in Iraq got worse and then, as American citizens rejected the war and stopped enlisting, the recruitment campaign began focusing on residents.

The first to be “invited” was his older brother Orlando, 34 years old and the father of two. Orlando turned down the offer, but it was obvious that immigrant recruit were much more likely to be put into a conflict zone.

“We lived near the base of the Air Force in Phoenix, newspaper we saw how they took off two airplanes Hercules with all the boys who got ready. They were recruiting like in the war of Vietnam, they said to you that they were going to you to train during a month and that after signing the contract in a citizen year or eras, as soon as he put himself the more difficult raised a year and many means to him and or better not even they were wanted to enlist “.

Carlos Mario related something his brother Orlando told him a few days ago in El Burrión, to the effect that the same sort of recruiting effort among Mexican residents can be found in communities all around Phoenix.

He pauses to recall that in March 2003, when the Americans first invaded Iraq, invitations to the Mexicans to enlist began arriving at his work center. He feared harrassment by the recruiters, who said that military service was obligatory for regularizing his residency. In July, he returned to Sinoloa.

Siblings Martín and Lorena Sandoval, who are also from El Burrión, were convinced to sign up. However, after a traffic accident in which her legs were injured, Lorena, 23, received a deferred enlistment. convinced him not to enlist. Lorena, 23, was planning to take the Army up on its offer, but he enlistment was deferred after a traffic accident injured her leg.

Martín, 26, received a letter telling him to show up at the Marine recrutinging center in Phoenix. Martín resplied that an eye disease prevented him from serving. Both Sandovals were convinced to return home, said Carlos Mario,.

The majority of 18 to 30 year olds in Arizona with family ties to Gunsave are either legal residents, or were born in the United States, making them citizens of that country. Carlos Mario was surprised to learn when his children were born that they were assigned a number that can be used to track their military service when they come of age.

“I have two kids, imagine that. When they grown, they’ll be cannon fodder in some war, and that’s when I came back. There are another 1500 children in Phoenix whose parents are from here.”

The Wedding That Wasn’t

When Ramón Romero Soto, a 19-year old local boy, who used to spend his vacations in El Burrión, was killed in Falluja on August 22, 2005 during an attack on a marine patrol, his relatives put up an altar in his house, in his memory, and in memory of all the boys in the community who every thought at one time of fighting in Iraq.

Ramón was born in San Diego, but his family are from this part of Sinola, He was a citizen of the United States, and had finished high school and had signed up for reservist training. From the time the Iraq invasion started, he had the idea of preparing to go to war, said his aunt, Fabiola Soto Parra.

Ramón conviced his mother, María Sota Parra to sign a letter authorizing him to join the Marines when he was 17, and still a minor. His aunt said that if his mother had not signed, Ramón would have joined up as soon as he was 18, anyway.

At the start of his training, he had no idea of how tough the preparation would be, and was out of communication with his family before leaving for Bagdad. Perhaps that’s the reason that at the first opportunity, he gave an engagement ring to his girlfriend, Tania Martínez, a Sinoloa girl whose photo also appears on the family altar.

Before leaving, Ramon told his mother and his fiancèe that if someday a military policeman came to their door, it mean it had been wounded in combat; but if two Marine officers showed up, it meant he was dead. After leaving, he was only able to speak to them for a few minutes every eight days. He talked about the packaged food that you had to heat up in the sun, said he had trouble sleeping, and expected to go into battle in a few days.

His mother had gone to visit his aunt in Tijuana for a few weeks. When she returned, there was a message on the telephone from the Red Cross. A few hours after returning the call to the Red Cross, the two Marine officers showed up at Ramón’s mother’s door.

Ramón had left for Iraq on the fourth of July and was killed by an IED in a Falluja street on the 22^nd of August, 2005, after only a month and a half at the front.

The last time he had been in El Burrión had been the summer of 2003, when he was 17. He spent his time with friends at a beach near town and people had expected him to move down with his girlfriend when he came back from Iraq. Instead, he was buried in Rose Hills Cemetery in San Diego, California.