thedrifter
07-29-07, 07:26 AM
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Brothers in arms forever
Despite being robbed of his sight, Sgt. Maj. Jesse Acosta learns that he can still make a difference in the lives of others.
By GREG MAGNUS/Photos by H. Lorren Au Jr.
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Third in an occasional series
LOS ALAMITOS - The air is filled with the sound of gunfire, automatic weapons, explosions.
No one seems to mind.
The soldiers of the Army's 63rd Regional Readiness Command are gathered at Los Alamitos for training. They joke and laugh, while the sound of simulated M-16 and M-240 machine gunfire penetrates through the walls of the hangar they are leaning against, smoking cigarettes.
Nearby, Sgt. Maj. Jesse Acosta, dressed in camouflage and wearing black, wraparound sunglasses, talks to one of the unit's newest soldiers. The soldier, Pfc. Adam Wiggins, collapsed during a recent fitness run and Acosta visited him at the hospital that day.
Acosta tells Wiggins, 41 years old and new to the Army Reserve, to take walks after working at his regular job as a courtroom assistant and drink lots of fluids.
"I appreciate you coming down to visit me. It made me feel good actually," Wiggins said.
"That's my job," Acosta said with a grin. "I gotta make sure that you're OK."
Acosta was blinded by a mortar shell in January 2006, while serving with the 63rd in Balad, Iraq. He was leading a 3-mile fitness run inside the camp when insurgents attacked the base, which is called "Mortar-ritaville" by some of the soldiers.
Guitar heroes
A few days later, Acosta is sitting outside his Santa Fe Springs home playing guitar with his friend Manny Rivas. Acosta holds his head close to the guitar, resting his chin near the strings. Besides losing his sight, Acosta has reduced hearing and little sense of smell or taste.
Rivas – the more accomplished guitarist – plays lead, while Acosta strums along to the Eagles' "Hotel California."
"I used to play in high school, but then I laid down the guitar and picked up the weapon," Acosta said.
Four months after leaving the Marines, Rivas, 24, was walking out of a Jack In The Box restaurant in Rialto when a gang member shot at him with a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun, blinding him. He was taken to the Western Blind Rehabilitation Center at the VA in Palo Alto, where Acosta was recovering from his injuries. One day Rivas was playing a music CD, when Acosta entered Rivas' room to ask the band's name.
"That's how we hooked up," Acosta said. "It was over music, believe it or not. It wasn't our blindness."
A patriotic lunch
Acosta gets ready to sit in the back yard of his brother's home in Norwalk on the Fourth of July, under an umbrella.
Connie, his wife, walks up and puts a plate of potato chips and a hot dog in front of him. Jesse eats a few chips and then asks: "What flavor are these?"
"You're eating barbecue chips," she says.
"Oh," he says, reaching for a few more. "Barbecue."
•••
Lunch is Salvadoran food. Rivas was born in El Salvador and loves to eat pupusas, thick, hand-made corn tortillas stuffed with cheese, fried pork rind, chicken or refried beans.
Acosta is sitting at the head of the table, joined by Rivas; Diana Borrayo, an Army staff sergeant who is Acosta's jogging partner and friend of 13 years; and Kristen Maddox, who runs a nonprofit organization called "Helping Our Troops" out of her Santa Ana home.
During lunch, Borrayo leads Rivas to the jukebox. Since Rivas can't see the song titles, Borrayo has to read the artists one by one.
"They got the Eagles?" Rivas said.
"They got the Eagles."
"They got 'Hotel California?'"
A kitchen remodeled
Acosta enters the living room and calls out for Connie, but there is no answer. It's hot inside the house, so he makes his way to the thermostat to turn the air conditioning on. Then he walks down the few steps between the living room and the kitchen to make sure the windows are closed.
He runs his hand along the wall, then the refrigerator. He navigates past the cooking island in the center of the kitchen, his cane clicking against the counter.
Before Acosta left for Iraq, he had the kitchen remodeled for Connie. They installed new granite countertops, custom tiles on the walls and new cabinetry.
And now, the kitchen built by love will be destroyed by love. Connie and Jesse are working with a nonprofit organization called Homes For Our Troops that helps build specially adapted homes for severely injured soldiers.
"We're just waiting, waiting to see when it'll happen," Connie said, after coming home from picking up their youngest child from school. "I think one of these days I'm gonna wake up and hear a big truck backing up, you know, beep-beep, and all the lumber and everything else is gonna be delivered, but so far, we've heard nothing.
"But like I said, if it doesn't happen, that's fine. It's all for Jesse, you know. Not about me."
Contact the writer: 714-796-2401 or gmagnus@ocregister.com
Ellie
Brothers in arms forever
Despite being robbed of his sight, Sgt. Maj. Jesse Acosta learns that he can still make a difference in the lives of others.
By GREG MAGNUS/Photos by H. Lorren Au Jr.
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Third in an occasional series
LOS ALAMITOS - The air is filled with the sound of gunfire, automatic weapons, explosions.
No one seems to mind.
The soldiers of the Army's 63rd Regional Readiness Command are gathered at Los Alamitos for training. They joke and laugh, while the sound of simulated M-16 and M-240 machine gunfire penetrates through the walls of the hangar they are leaning against, smoking cigarettes.
Nearby, Sgt. Maj. Jesse Acosta, dressed in camouflage and wearing black, wraparound sunglasses, talks to one of the unit's newest soldiers. The soldier, Pfc. Adam Wiggins, collapsed during a recent fitness run and Acosta visited him at the hospital that day.
Acosta tells Wiggins, 41 years old and new to the Army Reserve, to take walks after working at his regular job as a courtroom assistant and drink lots of fluids.
"I appreciate you coming down to visit me. It made me feel good actually," Wiggins said.
"That's my job," Acosta said with a grin. "I gotta make sure that you're OK."
Acosta was blinded by a mortar shell in January 2006, while serving with the 63rd in Balad, Iraq. He was leading a 3-mile fitness run inside the camp when insurgents attacked the base, which is called "Mortar-ritaville" by some of the soldiers.
Guitar heroes
A few days later, Acosta is sitting outside his Santa Fe Springs home playing guitar with his friend Manny Rivas. Acosta holds his head close to the guitar, resting his chin near the strings. Besides losing his sight, Acosta has reduced hearing and little sense of smell or taste.
Rivas – the more accomplished guitarist – plays lead, while Acosta strums along to the Eagles' "Hotel California."
"I used to play in high school, but then I laid down the guitar and picked up the weapon," Acosta said.
Four months after leaving the Marines, Rivas, 24, was walking out of a Jack In The Box restaurant in Rialto when a gang member shot at him with a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun, blinding him. He was taken to the Western Blind Rehabilitation Center at the VA in Palo Alto, where Acosta was recovering from his injuries. One day Rivas was playing a music CD, when Acosta entered Rivas' room to ask the band's name.
"That's how we hooked up," Acosta said. "It was over music, believe it or not. It wasn't our blindness."
A patriotic lunch
Acosta gets ready to sit in the back yard of his brother's home in Norwalk on the Fourth of July, under an umbrella.
Connie, his wife, walks up and puts a plate of potato chips and a hot dog in front of him. Jesse eats a few chips and then asks: "What flavor are these?"
"You're eating barbecue chips," she says.
"Oh," he says, reaching for a few more. "Barbecue."
•••
Lunch is Salvadoran food. Rivas was born in El Salvador and loves to eat pupusas, thick, hand-made corn tortillas stuffed with cheese, fried pork rind, chicken or refried beans.
Acosta is sitting at the head of the table, joined by Rivas; Diana Borrayo, an Army staff sergeant who is Acosta's jogging partner and friend of 13 years; and Kristen Maddox, who runs a nonprofit organization called "Helping Our Troops" out of her Santa Ana home.
During lunch, Borrayo leads Rivas to the jukebox. Since Rivas can't see the song titles, Borrayo has to read the artists one by one.
"They got the Eagles?" Rivas said.
"They got the Eagles."
"They got 'Hotel California?'"
A kitchen remodeled
Acosta enters the living room and calls out for Connie, but there is no answer. It's hot inside the house, so he makes his way to the thermostat to turn the air conditioning on. Then he walks down the few steps between the living room and the kitchen to make sure the windows are closed.
He runs his hand along the wall, then the refrigerator. He navigates past the cooking island in the center of the kitchen, his cane clicking against the counter.
Before Acosta left for Iraq, he had the kitchen remodeled for Connie. They installed new granite countertops, custom tiles on the walls and new cabinetry.
And now, the kitchen built by love will be destroyed by love. Connie and Jesse are working with a nonprofit organization called Homes For Our Troops that helps build specially adapted homes for severely injured soldiers.
"We're just waiting, waiting to see when it'll happen," Connie said, after coming home from picking up their youngest child from school. "I think one of these days I'm gonna wake up and hear a big truck backing up, you know, beep-beep, and all the lumber and everything else is gonna be delivered, but so far, we've heard nothing.
"But like I said, if it doesn't happen, that's fine. It's all for Jesse, you know. Not about me."
Contact the writer: 714-796-2401 or gmagnus@ocregister.com
Ellie