Posted on Fri, Apr. 4, 2008


Fighting a war - in real life and on film

By DAMON C. WILLIAMS
Philadelphia Daily News

williadc@phillynews.com 215-854-5924
From the front lines of the Iraq war all the way to Hollywood, Elliot Ruiz never forgot his North Philadelphia upbringing.

The former Marine corporal, now 23, a member of the unit that made a well-documented daring rescue of Shoshana Johnson and other prisoners of war in 2003, is back in Philly to lecture to high schoolers.

Ruiz will speak at 9 a.m. at his alma mater, Edison High School, 151 W. Luzerne St., then will head over to Kensington High School, 2051 E. Cumberland St., for an assembly at 1:30 p.m.

He is gearing up for the May 17 premiere of "Battle For Haditha," a docudrama directed by Nick Broomfield about the deaths of 24 innocent Iraqis at the hands of Marines. Ruiz stars as Cpl. Ramirez, a Marine who is ambivalent about his participation in the war.

"There is so much more to the world than just North Philly," Ruiz said yesterday in an interview in his parents' North Philly living room. "I knew I had to do something."

What he did was enlist in the Marines at age 17 on June 20, 2002, only to be severely wounded when an Iraqi driver crashed through his checkpoint.

Ruiz was honorably discharged from the Marines due to his injury on July 1, 2005, after receiving a Presidential Unit Citation.

Ruiz - whose father is a retired Marine who served in Vietnam - still walks with a limp.

After the Iraqi ran his checkpoint, Ruiz said, the barbed wire of his station "closed on my leg like a slinky and pulled me down the street."

"The wire ripped off, and I rolled on my stomach and felt my leg," Ruiz said. "I felt a draft, and my whole hand went inside my leg, to where I could feel the bone.

"So I tied a tourniquet on my leg myself, and told myself to calm down and wait for the helicopter to get me. That's when I was told that my unit successfully saved [the POWs]."

When Ruiz was medically discharged, he recalled, he didn't want "to return to Philly." His shot at Hollywood fame came out of the blue.

"I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard, and a lady stopped me and asked do I act or model," Ruiz recalled. "So I was then booked in a national Crest campaign, and decided to move to Los Angeles."

From there, Ruiz found himself featured in other advertising campaigns, including one for the Honda Civic, until his big break with "Battle For Haditha."

"They were casting for the film, and they needed guys with actual military experience," Ruiz said. "We were in Jordan filming, and Jordan is right next to Iraq, and I was working and staying with Iraqi refugees.

"Some of them had just lost relatives in the war, and we really got to understand each other."

As much as Ruiz is valued by the Marines and becoming a sought-after actor, he means that much more to his neighborhood and to his mother, Eugenia Burgos, who was brought to tears discussing her son.

"I am extremely proud of him," said Burgos, who kept Ruiz out of trouble by involving him in activities at the Norris Square Project, a community-based center, on which a mural depicts a very young Ruiz working in a yard. "He was always a good kid, and everything he gets, he deserves.

"He was always my hero, even before he enlisted."

Once discharged, Ruiz received a fairly large lump payment from the military. Most youth in Ruiz's position would have run off to buy a house or a nice car, which Ruiz did - for his mother.

Burgos has a liver disease and is on a nationwide waiting list for a liver donor. Ruiz's financial decisions enabled his mother to retire and focus on running the center, where she is a board member.

"I would do it all again," said Ruiz, who admitted to being an average student at Edison. "I had to make a decision about my life, and that's what I would tell the kids, that I am just like them.

"I would tell them to make the right decisions in life, because there's opportunities out there, be it college or the military or whatever."

Ruiz has invested in a clothing line called Hustler's Union, which produces colorful, affordable T-shirts in North Philly.

"I really wanted to pay back the city, and speaking and the T-shirts is the least I could do," he said.

"Battle For Haditha" will premiere in New York on May 7 before the Philadelphia premiere May 17, and Ruiz will host a meet-and-greet at 9 tonight at the Miami Cafe, 429 South St.

Trailers and other interviews can be viewed on Ruiz's Myspace page, www.myspace.com/hustlersunion215.

Ellie