thedrifter
11-10-06, 07:52 AM
With 2 tours and Purple Heart, Iraq vet recruits for his country
12:00 AM CST on Friday, November 10, 2006
By SCOTT FARWELL / The Dallas Morning News
After all that has happened, after a scrambled childhood, the fistfights and four trips to juvenile hall, after a series of court-appointed families, years of uncanny kindnesses and an indiscriminate landmine that killed two of his comrades, Marine Sgt. Robert Garza concludes this – God is on his side.
On Saturday, the 24-year-old graduate of Irving's Nimitz High School will be one of four grand marshals in the Dallas Veterans Day Parade.
He says he is lucky, and proud, but no more deserving of the recognition than any other Marine.
Sgt. Garza, a two-tour veteran of the Iraq war, suffered three cracked vertebrae in his neck when his Humvee drove through a minefield near the Iraq-Syria border on March 17, 2004. Two Marines died in the attack.
"We're driving along, and the last thing I remember is a flash of light," said Sgt. Garza, who is now a Marine Corps recruiter in Garland. "I hit my head on the windshield. I think that's when I cracked my vertebras."
He woke up screaming but could not hear his own voice.
The world was silent – he had been temporarily deafened by the blast – choked with dust and littered with the twisted wreckage of his vehicle.
He stood and walked around the crater, his head lolling from side-to-side like an infant because of his neck injury.
"They told me I looked like a bobble-head," he said. "Honestly, I didn't think I was alive when I woke up."
It was an experience he relived in nightmares during nine months of hospitalization and recovery – waking up in absolute silence, alone, unable to move his body. In the flashbacks, he is dead.
'Sense of home'
Sgt. Garza moved in with friends in Irving while he healed. He gained weight and lost the sense of purpose offered by the Marine Corps. Against the advice of friends and doctors, he decided to get back in shape, exercise his neck to regain a range of motion and re-enlist.
He signed up for four years, as a recruiter, in December 2004.
"When I got into the military, that's when I really felt the sense of a home," he said. "I didn't always have family around ... but when you're in the military, everybody's the same, it doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor."
Sgt. Garza was 5 years old when his father died of a heart attack. In the intervening years, he said, his family of 10 siblings began to fray. At age 14, he moved in with an older sister.
During high school, he lived with his football coach and one of his teammates.
"Before he joined the Marines, he was trying to figure out what life had in store for him," said Jim Prater, who took in Sgt. Garza for more than a year. "A couple of his brothers were in prison, his father had passed away, and it was just a struggle for Robert to find his place."
Mr. Prater said his family encouraged Sgt. Garza to share their Christian faith and join the military. He did both.
"We saw – and we still see – a lot of potential in Robert," Mr. Prater said. "He's been to Iraq twice, and he should have never made it back that last time. Two of his good buddies were killed in that incident. God protected him."
Marine Cpl. Lucas Munds, who will receive a Bronze Star for combat bravery this weekend in Chicago, served twice in Iraq with Sgt. Garza in the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment.
Twilight had begun to descend on boulder-studded landscape near the border of Iraq and Syria when Cpl. Munds heard the blast that injured his friend and claimed the lives of two other Marines.
"We heard a pretty large explosion, we heard that quite often, and then we listened to the radio to hear the names come through," he said. "We knew some had passed away, but we didn't know who, and so I immediately went into a frantic state."
He learned the next day that Sgt. Garza had survived and was being treated in a hospital near Baghdad.
"If anybody's going to spend 30 years in the Marine Corps, it's Garza," said Cpl. Munds. "I imagine him as a mean drill instructor, but I hear he's a recruiter now, and I can only imagine with his talking skills, he's excelling at that."
27 recruits last year
Last week, Sgt. Garza stood at a kiosk outside the lunchroom of Garland High School, his 5 feet 6 inches squared at the shoulders, ramrod straight. Six medals, including a Purple Heart, glint on his dress blues.
"What's up, man?" he said, clasping palms with a young man in a red sweatshirt, hood pulled over his ears. "How's your brother?"
"He's good, he's good," the young man said, motioning to a boy with sloped shoulders and an acne-pocked chin.
"We're trying to sign up on the buddy program."
Sgt. Garza, a Garland resident, told them to meet him in front of the school at 3 p.m. so he could give them a ride to the recruiting station. Later, he explained that the young man's brother is in the Marine Corps and that he plans to enlist next year.
"We get a lot of that," he said. "The Marines are a tradition in some families."
Sgt. Garza signed up 27 recruits last year in Garland. When questions about the war in Iraq surface – as they inevitably do – he avoids politics and emphasizes patriotism, he said.
"I'd rather die for my country honorably than die in a drive-by shooting," he said. "I'm going to be recognized as somebody who stood for something, not somebody who stood for a street."
Sgt. Garza said none of his recruits have gone to battle yet, and he worries about the consequences of combat.
"It's one of my concerns, that one of these kids will go over there and get hurt," he said. "But I have to remember, they love the Marines just like I love the Marines, and God's going to take care of them, just like he took care of me."
E-mail sfarwell@dallasnews.com
Ellie
12:00 AM CST on Friday, November 10, 2006
By SCOTT FARWELL / The Dallas Morning News
After all that has happened, after a scrambled childhood, the fistfights and four trips to juvenile hall, after a series of court-appointed families, years of uncanny kindnesses and an indiscriminate landmine that killed two of his comrades, Marine Sgt. Robert Garza concludes this – God is on his side.
On Saturday, the 24-year-old graduate of Irving's Nimitz High School will be one of four grand marshals in the Dallas Veterans Day Parade.
He says he is lucky, and proud, but no more deserving of the recognition than any other Marine.
Sgt. Garza, a two-tour veteran of the Iraq war, suffered three cracked vertebrae in his neck when his Humvee drove through a minefield near the Iraq-Syria border on March 17, 2004. Two Marines died in the attack.
"We're driving along, and the last thing I remember is a flash of light," said Sgt. Garza, who is now a Marine Corps recruiter in Garland. "I hit my head on the windshield. I think that's when I cracked my vertebras."
He woke up screaming but could not hear his own voice.
The world was silent – he had been temporarily deafened by the blast – choked with dust and littered with the twisted wreckage of his vehicle.
He stood and walked around the crater, his head lolling from side-to-side like an infant because of his neck injury.
"They told me I looked like a bobble-head," he said. "Honestly, I didn't think I was alive when I woke up."
It was an experience he relived in nightmares during nine months of hospitalization and recovery – waking up in absolute silence, alone, unable to move his body. In the flashbacks, he is dead.
'Sense of home'
Sgt. Garza moved in with friends in Irving while he healed. He gained weight and lost the sense of purpose offered by the Marine Corps. Against the advice of friends and doctors, he decided to get back in shape, exercise his neck to regain a range of motion and re-enlist.
He signed up for four years, as a recruiter, in December 2004.
"When I got into the military, that's when I really felt the sense of a home," he said. "I didn't always have family around ... but when you're in the military, everybody's the same, it doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor."
Sgt. Garza was 5 years old when his father died of a heart attack. In the intervening years, he said, his family of 10 siblings began to fray. At age 14, he moved in with an older sister.
During high school, he lived with his football coach and one of his teammates.
"Before he joined the Marines, he was trying to figure out what life had in store for him," said Jim Prater, who took in Sgt. Garza for more than a year. "A couple of his brothers were in prison, his father had passed away, and it was just a struggle for Robert to find his place."
Mr. Prater said his family encouraged Sgt. Garza to share their Christian faith and join the military. He did both.
"We saw – and we still see – a lot of potential in Robert," Mr. Prater said. "He's been to Iraq twice, and he should have never made it back that last time. Two of his good buddies were killed in that incident. God protected him."
Marine Cpl. Lucas Munds, who will receive a Bronze Star for combat bravery this weekend in Chicago, served twice in Iraq with Sgt. Garza in the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment.
Twilight had begun to descend on boulder-studded landscape near the border of Iraq and Syria when Cpl. Munds heard the blast that injured his friend and claimed the lives of two other Marines.
"We heard a pretty large explosion, we heard that quite often, and then we listened to the radio to hear the names come through," he said. "We knew some had passed away, but we didn't know who, and so I immediately went into a frantic state."
He learned the next day that Sgt. Garza had survived and was being treated in a hospital near Baghdad.
"If anybody's going to spend 30 years in the Marine Corps, it's Garza," said Cpl. Munds. "I imagine him as a mean drill instructor, but I hear he's a recruiter now, and I can only imagine with his talking skills, he's excelling at that."
27 recruits last year
Last week, Sgt. Garza stood at a kiosk outside the lunchroom of Garland High School, his 5 feet 6 inches squared at the shoulders, ramrod straight. Six medals, including a Purple Heart, glint on his dress blues.
"What's up, man?" he said, clasping palms with a young man in a red sweatshirt, hood pulled over his ears. "How's your brother?"
"He's good, he's good," the young man said, motioning to a boy with sloped shoulders and an acne-pocked chin.
"We're trying to sign up on the buddy program."
Sgt. Garza, a Garland resident, told them to meet him in front of the school at 3 p.m. so he could give them a ride to the recruiting station. Later, he explained that the young man's brother is in the Marine Corps and that he plans to enlist next year.
"We get a lot of that," he said. "The Marines are a tradition in some families."
Sgt. Garza signed up 27 recruits last year in Garland. When questions about the war in Iraq surface – as they inevitably do – he avoids politics and emphasizes patriotism, he said.
"I'd rather die for my country honorably than die in a drive-by shooting," he said. "I'm going to be recognized as somebody who stood for something, not somebody who stood for a street."
Sgt. Garza said none of his recruits have gone to battle yet, and he worries about the consequences of combat.
"It's one of my concerns, that one of these kids will go over there and get hurt," he said. "But I have to remember, they love the Marines just like I love the Marines, and God's going to take care of them, just like he took care of me."
E-mail sfarwell@dallasnews.com
Ellie