CATAGORIES: MILITARY, SEMPER FI, USMC — Yarbz @ 11:21 am

I thought this was worth a read by all of you. The grammer is as found:

I’m an immigrant from La Havana, Cuba, and my wife is from Santa Fe de Bogota, Colombia, we came to this wonderful, amazing and awesome country nearly 32 years ago, I’ve worked most of my life for Xerox Corp. in Mexico City, Santa Ana, Ca. and Rochester, N.Y., I have two sons, my oldest one is Luis A. Rodriguez and the youngest one is E. A. Rodriguez, for some reason my oldest one went back to Mexico city with a brother of mine, with the time he became a prominent Lawyer and nowadays he is a successful Businessman; the youngest one stayed with us here in California, finally he graduated from North Hollywood H S, in 1987, he always admired people in uniform, specially Marines; for some reason my son started “hanging out” with the wrong people, he dropped off H.S. on his sophomore year, I’m less than proud to let you know, that he spent 2 years in the streets of downtown Los Angeles, “dealing” and “doing” with not so good “stuff”; on day, my brother in law, his uncle Pedro, saw him on the street of downtown L.A. , approached my son and took him to his place, where he offered a shower, warm food, clean bed, clean clothes and help.

After a couple of weeks, my son E. was admitted in to this Rehab clinic in California, it took him 8 months to get rid off his addiction, then, one week before he’s got discharged from Detox, my brother in law, Pedro, went to visit him with a “friend” of his, after this “friend” spoke to my son for nearly 3 hours, my son told him he will have an answer to his “proposition” one day before my son’s Clinic dismissal, so it was the time for my son to make the right choice for once in his life!

He had only 2 choices, going back to high school, graduate and join the Corps, or simply he was going back to the streets either Mexico City or La Havana, Cuba. But my son was determined to be a better person and human being than he was before, so he made the right choice! He joined the USMC at 29 palms in Camp Pendleton, San Diego, Ca. graduated from boot camp in 1988, then, he was deployed to the Saudi Arabian Desert, where he Met former U.S. President Bush Sr. for Thanksgiving Day in 1988!

After his first tour ended in Afghanistan, he went to Quantico for officer candidate school, he graduated as an officer, then, he became 1LT USMC, after this, he was sent to Afghanistan again, then Desert Storm, then he was stationed in Ramstein, AB in Germany, then he was stationed at the US embassy in Mexico City, after being there for 2 years, he received his orders to be deployed to Mogadishu, Somalia, where he got injured on duty and his lovely and amazing military career finished…

all I have to say to you now is;

God bless the Corps! thanks for believe in my son and given the opportunity to fight and defend “my country” , “our country”

Semper fi
Cuban-Colombian Marine Dad