thedrifter
01-22-07, 08:42 AM
Posted on Mon, Jan. 22, 2007
AMERICA IN IRAQ
Snapshots from home
By Julia Prodis Sulek
Mercury News
When Army soldier Anthony Cordero left the San Jose airport Sunday to return to Iraq after two weeks of R & R, he tucked into his pocket a camera filled with snapshots of home.
They're not just photos of family and friends. They're of the Kragen Auto Parts parking lot on Blossom Hill, the In-N-Out Burger down the road, the Capitol Flea Market marquee, a bowling alley once called Oakridge Lanes, a street sign of Snell Road.
They're stark, ordinary. But to Pfc. Cordero, 21, on his first leave home since being stationed in Iraq for nearly six months, the images in many ways define who he is and where he comes from.
``I'm trying to take a piece of home with me so it's easier to cope over there,'' he said. ``For a second, you forget you're in Iraq and think of home.''
Home is South San Jose, a place that in parts can be as rough around the edges as Cordero is. With its aging apartment complexes and worn-out 1970s subdivisions, its mobile home parks and mini-markets along Blossom Hill Road, the area is sometimes called ``Blossom Hell.''
To Cordero, who has lived in Iraq with the almost nightly menace of mortar fire being lobbed toward his base, ``San Jose is paradise.''
It's paradise even though in the years before he left, the places that defined him were these: the sidewalk where his mom found him with his head down crying as the family house, uninsured, burned to the ground; the hill behind Santa Theresa High School where he buried his Rottweiler named Lady, who drowned in the backyard pool; the block on Cottle Road where he got jumped; the high school where he dropped out; his ex-girlfriend's house where he found her cheating on him with one of his best friends; the San Jose courtroom where he pleaded guilty to assault and battery for beating up that friend.
It's a place Cordero doesn't apologize for, a place he values for the lessons he's learned, the friends he counts on, the family he cherishes.
But it's a place he needed to leave to grow up, to -- as his uncle told him -- ``be the man.''
Cordero remembers his low point -- standing before a juvenile court judge Sept. 11, 2001, the day of the terrorist attacks. It became a turning point.
``I could be fighting them,'' he thought to himself back then, ``and here I am fighting people here.''
Pact to join military
Cordero made a pact with his best friend and skateboarding buddy Randy Dinga: They would join the military. Dinga joined the Marines. But the Marines don't take teenagers on probation. The Army does.
If nothing else, Cordero, who earned his high-school equivalency diploma, hopes a military record will balance out his criminal one when he eventually tries to get a job back home.
When he graduated from boot camp in his Class A uniform two years ago, ``that was the first thing I really accomplished,'' he said.
``Now,'' he thought, ``it's time for me to be somebody.''
That chance came while stationed at Camp Anaconda near the Iraqi town of Balad, an area where support for U.S. troops tends to be higher than in other parts of the country.
He was cleaning up trash outside the fence when a child startled him, running up and hugging him. ``I was kind of like shocked,'' Cordero said. ``For the first time ever, I felt like a hero.''
But moments like that come at a high price.
Even though Cordero hasn't seen battle, spending most of his time running cable and fiber-optic lines, the base is known as ``Mortar-ritaville'' for the incessant mortar fire directed at it. Most miss, he said, but they rattle the nerves.
And his platoon mates, as much as he can count on them to ``get his back,'' don't really understand him. Most of them are from South Carolina. He's the only one from California -- so they call him ``Cali.''
They don't know what it means to come from South San Jose.
When he returned to San Jose on leave two weeks ago, in time to celebrate his 21st birthday with his 19-year-old brother, born two years earlier on the same date, dozens of relatives and friends greeted him, waving signs and banners. These are the people who don't think twice when he pulls on his baggy jeans and long shirt and ties his black ``do-rag'' tightly around his head, or spends the afternoon at the Oakridge Mall buying a long silver necklace with a rhinestone-studded mirror on the end, or all evening playing video war games with his friends.
A lot of growing up
And they've noticed a difference in him.
``He's done a lot of growing up over there because he has to,'' said his girlfriend's mother, Lisa Atlas, the principal of Barrett Elementary School in Morgan Hill. ``Anthony's made a few choices I wouldn't want my kids to make, but he's learned from those choices. He's making choices now that will set him on a path to success.''
Cordero took his camera everywhere during these past two weeks at home, shooting the moments he wants to remember when he is back in the Iraqi desert.
He photographed the Oakridge Mall, right across from Johnny Rockets, where he did something he never would have done a year ago: He left the waiter a $40 tip because he imagined the guy's life might be harder than his.
``I just left it there,'' he said. ``If I didn't join the military I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't even look at him.''
Cordero took pictures of the parking lot of Kragen Auto Parts where he and his buddies spent hours and hours skateboarding, where Iraq didn't cross his mind once. He shot every room in the rental house his family moved into after the fire, where his mother served his favorite fried chicken and baked him a birthday cake.
In Iraq, he tries to keep secret from his mother the occasional missions he takes off base where roadside bombs are a persistent hazard.
Saturday was a particularly lethal day in Iraq for U.S. troops, with the American death toll climbing to 25. But Cordero says he tried not to listen to the news during his leave.
He promises his mother he'll stay safe. But sometimes, it's hard for her to believe.
``I cry all the time,'' his mother, Vicki Ongolea, said. ``He was the one who could never spend the night away -- he could never sleep away, even in high school.''
Now, he says, he spends many anxious nights worrying about her. ``I don't want to be the cause to bring a tear to her eye,'' he said. ``My goal over there is to call my mom everyday and tell her I love her.''
His girlfriend, Aimee Atlas, is preparing to graduate from San Jose State University and become a teacher like her mother. Cordero wants to marry her some day, when he has saved enough money to buy her a big ring and is home for good -- seven months from now if he's lucky. He wants to join the San Jose police force.
At the airport early Sunday morning, Cordero hugged tightly his family and friends who had come to say farewell. ``Don't worry,'' he said one more time, his eyes red with tears.
And as he did when he arrived in San Jose on a night flight two weeks ago, Cordero planned to take one last shot in Sunday's early morning light.
An aerial view of home.
Contact Julia Prodis Sulek at jsulek@mercurynews.com or (40 278-3409.
Ellie
AMERICA IN IRAQ
Snapshots from home
By Julia Prodis Sulek
Mercury News
When Army soldier Anthony Cordero left the San Jose airport Sunday to return to Iraq after two weeks of R & R, he tucked into his pocket a camera filled with snapshots of home.
They're not just photos of family and friends. They're of the Kragen Auto Parts parking lot on Blossom Hill, the In-N-Out Burger down the road, the Capitol Flea Market marquee, a bowling alley once called Oakridge Lanes, a street sign of Snell Road.
They're stark, ordinary. But to Pfc. Cordero, 21, on his first leave home since being stationed in Iraq for nearly six months, the images in many ways define who he is and where he comes from.
``I'm trying to take a piece of home with me so it's easier to cope over there,'' he said. ``For a second, you forget you're in Iraq and think of home.''
Home is South San Jose, a place that in parts can be as rough around the edges as Cordero is. With its aging apartment complexes and worn-out 1970s subdivisions, its mobile home parks and mini-markets along Blossom Hill Road, the area is sometimes called ``Blossom Hell.''
To Cordero, who has lived in Iraq with the almost nightly menace of mortar fire being lobbed toward his base, ``San Jose is paradise.''
It's paradise even though in the years before he left, the places that defined him were these: the sidewalk where his mom found him with his head down crying as the family house, uninsured, burned to the ground; the hill behind Santa Theresa High School where he buried his Rottweiler named Lady, who drowned in the backyard pool; the block on Cottle Road where he got jumped; the high school where he dropped out; his ex-girlfriend's house where he found her cheating on him with one of his best friends; the San Jose courtroom where he pleaded guilty to assault and battery for beating up that friend.
It's a place Cordero doesn't apologize for, a place he values for the lessons he's learned, the friends he counts on, the family he cherishes.
But it's a place he needed to leave to grow up, to -- as his uncle told him -- ``be the man.''
Cordero remembers his low point -- standing before a juvenile court judge Sept. 11, 2001, the day of the terrorist attacks. It became a turning point.
``I could be fighting them,'' he thought to himself back then, ``and here I am fighting people here.''
Pact to join military
Cordero made a pact with his best friend and skateboarding buddy Randy Dinga: They would join the military. Dinga joined the Marines. But the Marines don't take teenagers on probation. The Army does.
If nothing else, Cordero, who earned his high-school equivalency diploma, hopes a military record will balance out his criminal one when he eventually tries to get a job back home.
When he graduated from boot camp in his Class A uniform two years ago, ``that was the first thing I really accomplished,'' he said.
``Now,'' he thought, ``it's time for me to be somebody.''
That chance came while stationed at Camp Anaconda near the Iraqi town of Balad, an area where support for U.S. troops tends to be higher than in other parts of the country.
He was cleaning up trash outside the fence when a child startled him, running up and hugging him. ``I was kind of like shocked,'' Cordero said. ``For the first time ever, I felt like a hero.''
But moments like that come at a high price.
Even though Cordero hasn't seen battle, spending most of his time running cable and fiber-optic lines, the base is known as ``Mortar-ritaville'' for the incessant mortar fire directed at it. Most miss, he said, but they rattle the nerves.
And his platoon mates, as much as he can count on them to ``get his back,'' don't really understand him. Most of them are from South Carolina. He's the only one from California -- so they call him ``Cali.''
They don't know what it means to come from South San Jose.
When he returned to San Jose on leave two weeks ago, in time to celebrate his 21st birthday with his 19-year-old brother, born two years earlier on the same date, dozens of relatives and friends greeted him, waving signs and banners. These are the people who don't think twice when he pulls on his baggy jeans and long shirt and ties his black ``do-rag'' tightly around his head, or spends the afternoon at the Oakridge Mall buying a long silver necklace with a rhinestone-studded mirror on the end, or all evening playing video war games with his friends.
A lot of growing up
And they've noticed a difference in him.
``He's done a lot of growing up over there because he has to,'' said his girlfriend's mother, Lisa Atlas, the principal of Barrett Elementary School in Morgan Hill. ``Anthony's made a few choices I wouldn't want my kids to make, but he's learned from those choices. He's making choices now that will set him on a path to success.''
Cordero took his camera everywhere during these past two weeks at home, shooting the moments he wants to remember when he is back in the Iraqi desert.
He photographed the Oakridge Mall, right across from Johnny Rockets, where he did something he never would have done a year ago: He left the waiter a $40 tip because he imagined the guy's life might be harder than his.
``I just left it there,'' he said. ``If I didn't join the military I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't even look at him.''
Cordero took pictures of the parking lot of Kragen Auto Parts where he and his buddies spent hours and hours skateboarding, where Iraq didn't cross his mind once. He shot every room in the rental house his family moved into after the fire, where his mother served his favorite fried chicken and baked him a birthday cake.
In Iraq, he tries to keep secret from his mother the occasional missions he takes off base where roadside bombs are a persistent hazard.
Saturday was a particularly lethal day in Iraq for U.S. troops, with the American death toll climbing to 25. But Cordero says he tried not to listen to the news during his leave.
He promises his mother he'll stay safe. But sometimes, it's hard for her to believe.
``I cry all the time,'' his mother, Vicki Ongolea, said. ``He was the one who could never spend the night away -- he could never sleep away, even in high school.''
Now, he says, he spends many anxious nights worrying about her. ``I don't want to be the cause to bring a tear to her eye,'' he said. ``My goal over there is to call my mom everyday and tell her I love her.''
His girlfriend, Aimee Atlas, is preparing to graduate from San Jose State University and become a teacher like her mother. Cordero wants to marry her some day, when he has saved enough money to buy her a big ring and is home for good -- seven months from now if he's lucky. He wants to join the San Jose police force.
At the airport early Sunday morning, Cordero hugged tightly his family and friends who had come to say farewell. ``Don't worry,'' he said one more time, his eyes red with tears.
And as he did when he arrived in San Jose on a night flight two weeks ago, Cordero planned to take one last shot in Sunday's early morning light.
An aerial view of home.
Contact Julia Prodis Sulek at jsulek@mercurynews.com or (40 278-3409.
Ellie