Life getting back on track for Franklin Park war vet

March 26, 2009

By MARK LAWTON mlawton@pioneerlocal.com


Four years after returning from combat in Iraq, Alex Nuno of Franklin Park is ambiguous about his time in the Marines.

"I'm glad I could defend my country and do a good deed," said Nuno, 26. "I'm not going to say I enjoyed the experience."

Nuno joined the Marine Corps in 2001. Seventeen, single and not interested in college, the military struck him as a good option.

He started off as a combat engineer, working on construction and mine detection, and driving a Humvee. He served a year in Iraq, then decided he wanted a larger challenge and joined the infantry.

It was March 2003, toward the beginning of the war. Nuno was based in Fallujah. For the next nine months, he estimates he was under fire about 90 percent of the time.

He'd go out on missions to find explosive devices, take part in convoy drives through the city or gain or protect ground with 20 to 60 other soldiers at a time, men like himself who were in their teens or early 20s.

"It could be silent for a second or an hour," Nuno said. "The next moment it could turn into small arms fire, bombs flying overhead. They have RPG's (rocket propelled grenade launchers)."

On a moment-to-moment basis, Nuno relied on his training.

"It's a strategic matter," Nuno said. "Falling back, digging manholes, finding cover. We used buildings, we used schools. Find out the best way to take out the enemies without being seen."

What he wasn't trained for was the emotional aspects of being in combat.

"The first impact you have is fear, fear of the unknown," Nuno said. "Not knowing if you'll come back to your family."

Then there were the soldiers around him who were killed.

"There were close friends, there were people I met yesterday," Nuno said. "Welcome to second platoon. The next day they weren't there anymore."

He adds, "No one wants to be in war. I don't care if you trained for it and are gung ho and are all about kicking butt. Those are the guys who are first to sit down and cry and ask for ma."

Nuno returned to Illinois in May 2005. He resumed his friendship with Michela DiGioia, the girlfriend of a friend he'd met on a break from basic training back in 2001. Later, when DiGioia broke up with her then boyfriend, she and Nuno began to date.

DiGioia said Nuno changed.

"(In 2001) he was outgoing, goofy and all around fun to be with guy," DiGioia said. "When he came back he was just kind of quiet and he was standing there physically, not mentally."

Nuno spent that first five months without plans.

"I went out having a good time, partying and drinking, and spending all the hard earned money I got from being there," Nuno said. "In October I gathered myself up and tried to find myself a job."

He did -- repeatedly. He started off being an accounts payable clerk. Then he tried construction, working in a doctor's office, laying concrete, laying fiber-optic cable, bus boy, waiter, payroll clerk, mail clerk, working for a moving company, customer service for a phone company.

"I wouldn't like one job and I'd jump to the next," Nuno said. "I was in different jobs about every three months."

During the same time, he also investigated veteran's benefits. It wasn't as easy as the recruiter had made out.

"The benefits are out there, but it seems like you have to climb Mt. Everest to find them," Nuno said. "You get a beautiful picture of the military and all the benefits you get. They promised me a rose garden, they gave me a swamp."

DiGioia suggests that Nuno had other challenges.

"You're coming back from everything you know and are trying to adapt to the real world that you never knew because you left at age 17 or 18," DiGioia said. "He didn't have time to grieve. He lost a lot of good friends. (The military) told him if you don't bring the guys home it's your fault. He still holds that it's his fault."

In 2007, Nuno began taking general education classes at Triton College "even though I was clueless about what I wanted to be."

He also became engaged to DiGioia. To provide a proper wedding and honeymoon, he took a rather unusual route, entering a Groom of the Year contest put on by Brides.com. Out of 1,300 contestants, he made it to the final eight before being cut earlier in March.

His last job, in construction, ended in December. On the positive side, after an almost four-year search, he found someone knowledgeable about veteran's benefits in the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

Nuno also appears more focused on a career. In the long term he'd like to be a music producer with his own label. In the short term, he's studying computer engineering.

"He's really motivated now," DiGioia said. "I'm not saying it's not still a struggle. He goes through up and down phases."

"It was difficult trying to get myself back into the reality of things," Nuno said.

DiGioia and Nuno plan to get married in October.

Ellie