thedrifter
06-23-06, 06:11 AM
A commitment to honor
Thinking of Andy makes them cry. Not thinking of Andy makes them cry. Whether supporting Marines or standing with war protesters, Norma and Oscar Aviles find strength in the memory of their son.
By SUSAN ASCHOFF, Times Staff Writer
Published June 23, 2006
TAMPA
Politicians issue proclamations in his memory. Two stretches of asphalt, college scholarships and a live oak in a school yard have been christened with his name. A roadside memorial draws salutes from passing military.
His parents, Norma and Oscar Aviles, come to stand with the discontented at peace rallies, and with rigidly at-attention Marines at his Reserves center. They are enveloped in support. They are alone.
Oscar Aviles calls this mixture of grief and gratitude "bittersweet." Their son is remembered. But he is gone.
Andy Aviles, 18, died when enemy fire hit his Marine assault vehicle in the push to Baghdad three years ago. More than 1,000 people came to his Tampa funeral.
In Internet postings and e-mails, strangers want to be friends.
People crowd around Andy's parents. They shake their hands. They thank them for their sacrifice.
"You try,'' says Norma, "to grab hold of something.''
* * *
Several boys toss a football on the field at Robinson High School. Most of the students have gone home, and only a few stragglers wait for rides as the sun slides toward the horizon.
Norma Aviles sits alone on the bleachers. She used to watch Andy at track meets. She likes it here, she says, because it reminds her of Andy.
She remembers Andy the newborn, 8 pounds and 14 ounces and already bold. "Every four hours they bring the baby. All the babies are crying. All the babies go yi, yi, yi,'' Norma Aviles says of the maternity ward at the Brooklyn, N.Y., hospital. Everyone could hear Andy. "He's yo, yo, yo,'' she says, lowering her voice to a booming bass.
Norma, from Peru, met Oscar, from New York, when they worked at a bank near Wall Street. They wed 25 years ago and moved to Florida in 1990, three children in tow. First came Kristine, then Andy, then Matthew.
"Mom, it's a middle child thing,'' Andy would say to excuse bad behavior when he was caught.
In the football stands, Norma cries as she remembers Andy the honor student, class president, wrestler. Andy did not study as hard as his sister, she says, but he studied enough to graduate third in his class. She smiles at the memory of Andy, the cheerleader. He and another boy were the first in Robinson's history.
She laughs. "The girls wanted him to do it. He said it would be fun.''
She clutches photographs she has brought, of Andy with his friends, smiling and handsome. She lays the photos on the bleacher, weighting them with a travel cup against the wind.
* * *
Andy had big plans, his mother says.
He worked as a busboy at Shells to buy pricey jeans, bragging when he got them on sale, and snug polo shirts to show off his muscles. He was 5 feet 6 and weighed 160 pounds and constantly lifted weights.
While he was still at Robinson, he told his parents he wanted to attend Florida State University, earn a business degree and make a fortune in real estate.
He was a junior when he began thinking about the Marines. "In the newspaper they had a little card. Get information and get weight-lifting gloves,'' Norma says. The gloves said Marines on the cuffs and Andy wanted the gloves so he mailed in the card.
Andy was only 17. His father had to sign the enlistment papers for the Marine Reserves. It was 2001, the summer before Andy's senior year in high school, before the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.
"I looked at the recruiter,'' recalls Oscar Aviles, "and I said, if we got in a war, would he be sent to war?''
"Yes, Mr. Aviles,'' the recruiter said.
He asked Andy: "Papito, are you willing to go fight?''
Andy said he would do what he was called to do.
* * *
On a Monday morning in May, Oscar Aviles is showing how to tell time on a picture of a cuckoo clock in his Chiaramonte Elementary classroom. Norma is a teacher, too, in Head Start at another school. In Oscar's class, there are mentally handicapped children in kindergarten through fifth grade and several mainstream 4- and 5-year-olds.
"What color do you want to color these little birdies?'' he asks 6-year-old Uriah, squatting next to the child's desk.
"Purple.''
Barely 5 feet 5, his silver beard and mustache contrasting with black shirt and slacks, Oscar talks often about being strong for his children and for Norma. "What she's going through,'' he says of his wife, "has to be a hundredfold what I'm going through. She carried him for nine months.''
Norma went with Andy to freshman orientation in Tallahassee. He planned to go to basic training in the summer and start at FSU in the fall.
Scheduling delays pushed training back to fall 2002, so Andy postponed college a semester. Even with war looming, the Aviles family thought Andy would not go. He was a Reserve. He was still learning how to be a Marine.
Oscar's voice cracks when he talks about Andy. Here in this classroom, here with these children, he feels safe.
In tiny ways, his students remind him of Andy. The way one of them holds a pencil, the way another walks.
"I take certain things from each of them," Oscar says, "and I make a complete Andy."
* * *
Two dozen peace activists and veterans gather on a Bayshore Boulevard sidewalk on Memorial Day. A brisk breeze blows out their candles and ripples a "Stop The War" banner. Cyclists and joggers plow past.
"Don't block the sidewalk,'' scolds an inline skater, flipping his middle finger as he speeds away. Others honk approval from SUVs and Hondas.
Norma Aviles arrives and is quickly surrounded, her tiny 4-foot-11 frame disappearing inside the circle. Kathy Hankenson says she met Norma when she read in the paper about her son's roadside memorial disappearing in February from its spot near MacDill Air Force Base and Googled "Norma Aviles." "I've embraced this family. My heart breaks that we're over there and people are dying.''
Members of the group Veterans for Peace have placed a fake casket on a strip of grass and stuck a pole with an American flag in the dirt. A man begins reading the names of soldiers and Marines killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. A woman in a wheelchair holds a photo of Lance Cpl. Andy Aviles.
"I don't have complaints for the military. I have complaints for this war,'' says Norma, her short dark hair making her look almost girlish. "President Bush says we have to continue the war to honor the dead. Does he think the dead want more to die?''
She remembers when Andy was called in January 2003 to report to the Marine Reserve Center.
"It was very early and very dark,'' Norma says. "Car after car was turning in'' at the collection of squat buildings on the eastern end of the Gandy Bridge.
The Reserves of the 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion were being activated, leaving for California, then Kuwait. Everybody had their gear. No one told Andy to bring his.
Norma watched her son. He did not say anything to her. Under his breath, she heard him say: "My God. They are taking me.''
On the Bayshore Boulevard sidewalk, the breeze smells like fish. Oscar arrives late, explaining he cooked dinner for Kristine and Matthew. Cars speed past as the names of the dead are read aloud until the fading light makes it impossible to read any more.
* * *
When U.S. forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, Norma watched television for days, looking for Andy. Then she could not bear to watch anymore.
Andy wrote four letters home from Kuwait as the U.S. military massed people and equipment outside Iraq. He once told his mother he was no hero. Then you will be one by default, she answered.
He signed his last letter home, "Your hero, by default.''
News came to the Aviles home in Tampa's Sun Bay South neighborhood at 9 p.m. April 7, 2003. The war in Iraq was only 18 days old. Norma saw the shadows cross her dining room window. Oscar answered the door to find four Marines in dress blues. He knew why they were there. He did not want to know.
"Is my son hurt?'' Oscar asked, almost hopefully.
"Mr. Aviles, can we come in?''
Norma ran into the bedroom. She moaned and sobbed. Please, God. Don't let it be Andy. She watched relatives come to the house. They were crying. It must be true. Oscar says everything was a blur. He didn't sleep for days. He couldn't eat. He would sit on the screened porch and family would come out and talk.
"For some reason I felt like Andy was sitting in that chair next to me,'' he says.
"I guess it was after the funeral, after we took his ashes to Arlington, I guess it was then that I started to accept it.''
* * *
On a Friday morning at the Marine Reserve Center, 40 men and women in camouflage uniforms stand at attention on the gymnasium's wooden floor. The bleachers are empty, except for Norma and Oscar Aviles. They have come to watch one of these Marines receive a scholarship in their son's name.
A photo of Andy hangs on the wall in the hallway. Beside it are three photos of other battalion members killed in action in Iraq.
After the scholarship is awarded, Oscar gives a short speech, thanking the Marines who have come for the ceremony. His hands are trembling.
"I want you to know we support you guys," he says, standing on the floor with Norma. "We support the Marines. We want you safe and to come back to your families.''
Each of the Marines files past the couple to shake their hands. Norma and Oscar are having none of that. They stretch to reach their arms around each Marine. Then they walk, alone, to their car.
Susan Aschoff can be reached at 727 892-2293 or aschoff@sptimes.com.
Ellie
Thinking of Andy makes them cry. Not thinking of Andy makes them cry. Whether supporting Marines or standing with war protesters, Norma and Oscar Aviles find strength in the memory of their son.
By SUSAN ASCHOFF, Times Staff Writer
Published June 23, 2006
TAMPA
Politicians issue proclamations in his memory. Two stretches of asphalt, college scholarships and a live oak in a school yard have been christened with his name. A roadside memorial draws salutes from passing military.
His parents, Norma and Oscar Aviles, come to stand with the discontented at peace rallies, and with rigidly at-attention Marines at his Reserves center. They are enveloped in support. They are alone.
Oscar Aviles calls this mixture of grief and gratitude "bittersweet." Their son is remembered. But he is gone.
Andy Aviles, 18, died when enemy fire hit his Marine assault vehicle in the push to Baghdad three years ago. More than 1,000 people came to his Tampa funeral.
In Internet postings and e-mails, strangers want to be friends.
People crowd around Andy's parents. They shake their hands. They thank them for their sacrifice.
"You try,'' says Norma, "to grab hold of something.''
* * *
Several boys toss a football on the field at Robinson High School. Most of the students have gone home, and only a few stragglers wait for rides as the sun slides toward the horizon.
Norma Aviles sits alone on the bleachers. She used to watch Andy at track meets. She likes it here, she says, because it reminds her of Andy.
She remembers Andy the newborn, 8 pounds and 14 ounces and already bold. "Every four hours they bring the baby. All the babies are crying. All the babies go yi, yi, yi,'' Norma Aviles says of the maternity ward at the Brooklyn, N.Y., hospital. Everyone could hear Andy. "He's yo, yo, yo,'' she says, lowering her voice to a booming bass.
Norma, from Peru, met Oscar, from New York, when they worked at a bank near Wall Street. They wed 25 years ago and moved to Florida in 1990, three children in tow. First came Kristine, then Andy, then Matthew.
"Mom, it's a middle child thing,'' Andy would say to excuse bad behavior when he was caught.
In the football stands, Norma cries as she remembers Andy the honor student, class president, wrestler. Andy did not study as hard as his sister, she says, but he studied enough to graduate third in his class. She smiles at the memory of Andy, the cheerleader. He and another boy were the first in Robinson's history.
She laughs. "The girls wanted him to do it. He said it would be fun.''
She clutches photographs she has brought, of Andy with his friends, smiling and handsome. She lays the photos on the bleacher, weighting them with a travel cup against the wind.
* * *
Andy had big plans, his mother says.
He worked as a busboy at Shells to buy pricey jeans, bragging when he got them on sale, and snug polo shirts to show off his muscles. He was 5 feet 6 and weighed 160 pounds and constantly lifted weights.
While he was still at Robinson, he told his parents he wanted to attend Florida State University, earn a business degree and make a fortune in real estate.
He was a junior when he began thinking about the Marines. "In the newspaper they had a little card. Get information and get weight-lifting gloves,'' Norma says. The gloves said Marines on the cuffs and Andy wanted the gloves so he mailed in the card.
Andy was only 17. His father had to sign the enlistment papers for the Marine Reserves. It was 2001, the summer before Andy's senior year in high school, before the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.
"I looked at the recruiter,'' recalls Oscar Aviles, "and I said, if we got in a war, would he be sent to war?''
"Yes, Mr. Aviles,'' the recruiter said.
He asked Andy: "Papito, are you willing to go fight?''
Andy said he would do what he was called to do.
* * *
On a Monday morning in May, Oscar Aviles is showing how to tell time on a picture of a cuckoo clock in his Chiaramonte Elementary classroom. Norma is a teacher, too, in Head Start at another school. In Oscar's class, there are mentally handicapped children in kindergarten through fifth grade and several mainstream 4- and 5-year-olds.
"What color do you want to color these little birdies?'' he asks 6-year-old Uriah, squatting next to the child's desk.
"Purple.''
Barely 5 feet 5, his silver beard and mustache contrasting with black shirt and slacks, Oscar talks often about being strong for his children and for Norma. "What she's going through,'' he says of his wife, "has to be a hundredfold what I'm going through. She carried him for nine months.''
Norma went with Andy to freshman orientation in Tallahassee. He planned to go to basic training in the summer and start at FSU in the fall.
Scheduling delays pushed training back to fall 2002, so Andy postponed college a semester. Even with war looming, the Aviles family thought Andy would not go. He was a Reserve. He was still learning how to be a Marine.
Oscar's voice cracks when he talks about Andy. Here in this classroom, here with these children, he feels safe.
In tiny ways, his students remind him of Andy. The way one of them holds a pencil, the way another walks.
"I take certain things from each of them," Oscar says, "and I make a complete Andy."
* * *
Two dozen peace activists and veterans gather on a Bayshore Boulevard sidewalk on Memorial Day. A brisk breeze blows out their candles and ripples a "Stop The War" banner. Cyclists and joggers plow past.
"Don't block the sidewalk,'' scolds an inline skater, flipping his middle finger as he speeds away. Others honk approval from SUVs and Hondas.
Norma Aviles arrives and is quickly surrounded, her tiny 4-foot-11 frame disappearing inside the circle. Kathy Hankenson says she met Norma when she read in the paper about her son's roadside memorial disappearing in February from its spot near MacDill Air Force Base and Googled "Norma Aviles." "I've embraced this family. My heart breaks that we're over there and people are dying.''
Members of the group Veterans for Peace have placed a fake casket on a strip of grass and stuck a pole with an American flag in the dirt. A man begins reading the names of soldiers and Marines killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. A woman in a wheelchair holds a photo of Lance Cpl. Andy Aviles.
"I don't have complaints for the military. I have complaints for this war,'' says Norma, her short dark hair making her look almost girlish. "President Bush says we have to continue the war to honor the dead. Does he think the dead want more to die?''
She remembers when Andy was called in January 2003 to report to the Marine Reserve Center.
"It was very early and very dark,'' Norma says. "Car after car was turning in'' at the collection of squat buildings on the eastern end of the Gandy Bridge.
The Reserves of the 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion were being activated, leaving for California, then Kuwait. Everybody had their gear. No one told Andy to bring his.
Norma watched her son. He did not say anything to her. Under his breath, she heard him say: "My God. They are taking me.''
On the Bayshore Boulevard sidewalk, the breeze smells like fish. Oscar arrives late, explaining he cooked dinner for Kristine and Matthew. Cars speed past as the names of the dead are read aloud until the fading light makes it impossible to read any more.
* * *
When U.S. forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, Norma watched television for days, looking for Andy. Then she could not bear to watch anymore.
Andy wrote four letters home from Kuwait as the U.S. military massed people and equipment outside Iraq. He once told his mother he was no hero. Then you will be one by default, she answered.
He signed his last letter home, "Your hero, by default.''
News came to the Aviles home in Tampa's Sun Bay South neighborhood at 9 p.m. April 7, 2003. The war in Iraq was only 18 days old. Norma saw the shadows cross her dining room window. Oscar answered the door to find four Marines in dress blues. He knew why they were there. He did not want to know.
"Is my son hurt?'' Oscar asked, almost hopefully.
"Mr. Aviles, can we come in?''
Norma ran into the bedroom. She moaned and sobbed. Please, God. Don't let it be Andy. She watched relatives come to the house. They were crying. It must be true. Oscar says everything was a blur. He didn't sleep for days. He couldn't eat. He would sit on the screened porch and family would come out and talk.
"For some reason I felt like Andy was sitting in that chair next to me,'' he says.
"I guess it was after the funeral, after we took his ashes to Arlington, I guess it was then that I started to accept it.''
* * *
On a Friday morning at the Marine Reserve Center, 40 men and women in camouflage uniforms stand at attention on the gymnasium's wooden floor. The bleachers are empty, except for Norma and Oscar Aviles. They have come to watch one of these Marines receive a scholarship in their son's name.
A photo of Andy hangs on the wall in the hallway. Beside it are three photos of other battalion members killed in action in Iraq.
After the scholarship is awarded, Oscar gives a short speech, thanking the Marines who have come for the ceremony. His hands are trembling.
"I want you to know we support you guys," he says, standing on the floor with Norma. "We support the Marines. We want you safe and to come back to your families.''
Each of the Marines files past the couple to shake their hands. Norma and Oscar are having none of that. They stretch to reach their arms around each Marine. Then they walk, alone, to their car.
Susan Aschoff can be reached at 727 892-2293 or aschoff@sptimes.com.
Ellie