I’m ready for the physical training (PT) test this year. I know that I’ve been keeping my training up every day. I got this, I’m shooting for 100+ push-ups and sit-ups, but honestly that doesn’t matter, what matters is the run. I’m getting that mile and a half, I know everyone in my section and … Read more
I love and care about him, but does he love me back? It’s like he is scared to admit that he has emotions, and at times I don’t even know if he really even cares about me. Ever since he moved to Okinawa, he has slowly been getting more cold and distant. I don’t get … Read more
During deployments we have an abundant amount of time to romanticize the day we will arrive home. Will our loved ones be there? What will it feel like to hold them in our arms? It wasn’t until my fifth deployment that I allowed myself to build up fantasies of the perfect homecoming. The embrace of … Read more
Transitioning from the Army to college has been a struggle. Sometimes I am reminded about my age, either directly or indirectly. For example, whenever a teaching assistant asks in section the year each person was born and the general reply is 2000 or 2001, I feel embarrassed, so I lie and say I was born … Read more
I left home when I was 19 years old. My mom was pregnant with her third child, and my sister was a senior in high school. My father has been out of picture since I was a child. I had graduated from high school but didn’t try to go to college. Instead, I began working. After a summer of selling office supplies, … Read more
“SHOTS ARE READY!…One for you!… Do you have one?….DOES EVERYONE HAVE A SHOT?!?!” This was the start of a party I threw in East LA before I headed out for my first deployment to Afghanistan as a Navy augmentee to an “Airborne Information, Surveillance and Reconnaissance” unit. I was nervous about not knowing what was … Read more
The blistering dry heat of the Arabian afternoon hit me as I opened the maintenance shop door. I trudged across the sunbaked pavement to the KC-10 Extender refueling jets lined up on the far end of the runway. “Airman Young!” a loud, no-nonsense New Jersey voice bellowed, cutting through the hot desert silence. It was … Read more
Leaving Sigonella Airbase, Sicily, in my rented Fiat sub-compact I turned right on Strada Statale 192, toward Catania. As I was driving down the highway, I thought back to the events from that morning: I arrived at 0700 to muster for what was supposed to be my flight back to the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga. … Read more
In October of 2012, I was an international college student facing deportation for failing two classes. Twenty two years old, living in my parents’ loft, aimless in academics, and frustrated in competitive Brazilian-Jiu jitsu. When the U.S. Army advertised through the LA Times that they had the need for Filipinos who spoke the Tagalog language, … Read more
Just after a month of being downrange in Balad, Iraq, in 2006, where I was a Combat Flight Medic, I received a wounded Marine via Medivac. I immediately noticed his praying hands, which were wrapped with a rosary and resting on his left pectoral. Upon further inspection, I saw that his body was riddled with … Read more