When you see, hear, or interact with anyone, you always have
an expectation of them.
Those expectations are ingrained within us, as it is our
nature to be able to get a sense of those around us.
Those expectations are not necessarily good or bad, however
throughout my life, the expectations of who I should be, have always been low,
and to be honest, at one point I almost believe them.
You see, I was born into a dirt-poor situation in central
Mexico back in the 1980s, amid the beginning of a drug war that is still raging
today in a state of constant fear, violence, and a never-ending sense of unrest
and uncertainty.
To me and my family, all of that stuff that was happening
just became the norm and we lived our life the best we could, and for me that
meant playing a lot of soccer pretty much all of the time, pretty much
everywhere I could.
At one point, when I was about 12 years old, my parents
decided to leave everything behind. Their careers, all of our possessions, all
of our immediate family, all of our friends, to search for a new, better life here
in the United States.
My parents were able to enter the United States with
temporary work visas and were able to bring me and my sisters along. My parents obtained multiple hard, and back
breaking jobs well below their schooling and capabilities working for many
manufacturing companies in West Michigan, while all of us did our best to try
to restart our lives.
Eventually, myself and my sisters enrolled in grade school,
and right about this time in my life it’s when I started to realize what other
people’s expectations of me are.
It did not take long for my new peers in school to treat me
up to their expectation. To them I was just the weird, dirty, and strange kid
that had no business being anything to anyone.
Living under those expectations was extremely frustrating,
but little did I know, those experiences were going to shape my life and
eventually save it.
I struggled to get by grade school, and not for the lack of
trying, but rather because I needed to cramp up not only the school work, but
an entire new culture, language, and a way of living.
My teacher’s expectations were for me to attend
school, learn English, keep up in all subjects, and do the homework and
eventually I would be ready to go to college. What my teachers did not put in
consideration is that every morning after my parents left me and my sisters to
go to work for the entire day, I was left to do chores, get myself and my sisters ready to go to
school, cook, walk to school, struggle at school, pick up my sisters after
school, make dinner, pick up the house, and then after all that attempt to do
homework and “learn”.
It goes without saying that I did not live up to their
expectations.
Some days, I would see the school’s soccer team practice as
I was walking back home, and be reminded that the sport that I loved and was
good at, and could be successful at doing was not a possibility because my
grades were not good enough to join the team. The only thing that I am good at, I am not
allowed to do, and there was nothing I could do about it. Expectations, yet
again keeping me down.
In my last year of High School, my situation did not change
much. Except by that time, my father decided to make the situation harder and
ended up leaving my mother, my sisters, and I to fend for ourselves.
My mother did her best to keep us afloat, but to tell you
that she had a plan for me after I graduated High School would be a lie.
At this point in my life I had to make a choice: Live down to my expectations of a poor
immigrant guy, with no real education, working dead end jobs, possibly joining
a gang to feel like a belong, and really for all tends and purposes become a no
one, or join the military.
I remember, the first time I talked to a Marine Corps recruiter,
He was doing the best he could to sell me the Marines on things like college,
careers, travel and so forth, however, the thing that really interest me was
the part about becoming a Marine.
To be honest, I did not know what being a Marine was but I
knew that it was something, I knew that by joining the Marines I would finally
become someone in this new, and crazy world, I knew that by becoming a Marine I
would finally live past my expectations.
It took less time for me to decide to join that Marines than
it takes anyone to write a tweet about their breakfast, it took even less time
for my mother to let me join the Marines when I was still 17 years of age. And
not because she did not love me, it was because it was the only option she had
for me.
I somehow graduated High School, and in the fall of year
2000 after just a couple of months past graduating High School, I was in my
first flight heading over to San Diego to start boot camp and try to become a
United States Marine.
Marine Corps bootcamp is physically and mentally hard as the
drill instructors try their best to get rid of all the bad habits, detrimental
attitudes, and selfishness and instill honor, courage, and commitment in many
interesting ways to say the least.
However, to a guy that barely speaks English, and already has
lived a life where toughness is required in an everyday basis, between the
insults and boarder line traumatic experiences, bootcamp was also a very funny
place.
In boot camp I earned the nickname of “recruit smirky” as I
thought everything was funny, even when things weren’t. I remember being
“smoked out” and laughing out loud which in turn made my drill instructors “smoke”
me even more.
To this day, I still have to tell people that “I laugh when
im sad” and they think its funny, but it is so very true and all started in
boot camp.
Marine Corps boot camp was oddly the first place where I
felt like I belonged somewhere. It was
in fact the first place where I thought that I was not the lesser of other
people around me, as we all were recruits, and we all suffered, and we all
learn to become Marines together, and we knew that the only way through the
suffering was to remain together. A
sentiment that is still shared among many Veterans these days.
Well after 3 months of grueling, and “hilarious” moments in
Marine Corps bootcamp, it was time to endure the last test of will before
becoming a Marine which required a 3 day war like situation with tactical
maneuvers, limited sleep, firing and carrying huge heavy guns and its ammo,
endless marching and finally culminating in climbing a huge and steep mountain
called the “reaper”.
The task of climbing the “reaper” was not an easy feat, but
as I kept climbing and felt my shoulders, arms, back, and legs reaching the
point of maximum exhaustion, I kept thinking to myself: “the pain that it feels
to climb this mountain is nothing compared to the pain of being a nobody” so I
kept on climbing and climbing some more until I started to hear music, at that
point it might have been just in my head, but I remember looking up and among
my fellow recruits and seeing the ridge top, and on it I saw my drill instructors
waiting for us all.
However, this time they were not receiving us with shouts
and commands but with a military salute as we march past them. And as I stood
there atop of the “reaper” I saw my Drill Instructor approach me, and as he
faced me, he handed me an Eagle, Globe, and Anchor insignia, an insignia signifying
that I had lived past all of my expectations, an insignia that signified that I
had become a part of the few and the proud, I had become a United States
Marine.
Earning the title of a United States Marine felt amazing. My
family looked up to me, my peers wanted to be me, girls finally started paying
attention to me, and I was extremely proud of myself. I remember the first time I wore my dress
blues uniform and attending an event in them. Walking in, feeling like
superman, and taking the air out of the room. Still to this day one of the best
feelings I have ever experienced.
However, the uniform, the attention, and the title don’t
mean much if you are not willing to fight.
I was Private First class in the morning of September 11th,
2001, and as me and my fellow Marines saw those towers fall, we knew that our
chance to fight would be soon and we would be ready, as we were expected to do
so, and so we did.
My first deployment to a combat zone was just six months
after the 9/11 attacks, and I became part of the first push into Iraq in 2002,
and then volunteered to stay for another tour that took me all the way into
2003, came home for about 4 months and then volunteered to go back again for
another tour for a total of 16 months in country while performing combat
operations in Iraq. I had effectively
spent more time in Iraq than I had in the states as a Marine, and in those 16
months I had endured hard work, sleepless nights, sweat, dirt, fear, blood, and
extreme proudness of who I had become, the country that had given me the
opportunity to go past my wildest expectations, and was proud to represent the
citizens of this amazing country as I had become one myself in that span.
We came home as heroes, we came home as saviors, but we also
we came home broken.
You see when you become superman, soaring through the skies,
saving everyone’s day, there will be a day when you just cannot do it anymore,
and when you finally fall from the sky, the fall will hit hard.
For me, that day came when I was at peak of feeling
invincible. 10 years in the Marine corps, 4 deployments, a leader of Marines, I
had been shot at, I had been bombarded, and was still here! I had been through
the wringer and spit back out and there was nothing that could stop me, so, I
thought.
I was so convinced that nothing could stop me that I dared
speed and the two wheels of a motorcycle to give me its best shot, and unfortunately,
I had lost.
Not only I lost my right arm that day, but I had lost
everything else. The proudness that I had earned as a Marine, gone! People
started to pity me. The confidence I had
built through all those years of hardship, gone! I was lost. The opportunity to continue to defend our
country, gone! I was by myself.
I spent a couple of years trying to find a new purpose in
life, feeling sorry for myself, with no clear end to the suffering in sight,
and was very much depressed.
Expectations can work in many ways. Before becoming a Marine I was expected to
fail, and thankfully I was able to go beyond my expectations and become
successful. After becoming a Marine I was expected to be successful, but I
failed to realize that I was not invincible. And then there I was, expected to
fail once again, but this time it would be at fighting for my life.
And then, before descending to despair, I remembered
climbing the “reaper” all those years back before becoming a Marine. I remember
just how hard, and painful it was, I remembered how heavy my legs felt, I
remembered that there was no way I would
stop until I became a Marine, and that in order to become something else
than what we are expected to be we must go through pain, and that my current
situation was not much different from where I was then.
So the next day I went to talk to the US Paralympics and I
asked them “What is the hardest sport there is for an arm amputee” and they all
agreed, “Cross Country skiing”, and without skipping a beat and with no Cross
Country Skiing experience, I bought a pair of skis, packed everything I had,
move to a place surrounded by snow, and just started skiing, every day, for many hours at a time, enduring
pain, cold, and the many falls that would follow. It was boot camp all over again, minus the
laughing.
After a while, I started racing and making a name for
myself, but then after 2 years of gruesome training and racing, I got a call
from the US Paralympics informing that I would be able to represent the United
States and its people at the 2014 Sochi Paralympics in cross country skiing.
As I stood there in the middle of Sochi Russia, about to
become a Paralympian, with my family, and thousands of spectators witnessing me
yet again living way past my expectations, I knew that the feat would not have
been possible if it was not for the fighting spirit and the love for our
country that the Marines had helped instill in me all those years back.
I have told you my story of how I became a Marine on this 244th
Marine Corps birthday, and with Veterans day tomorrow, so you can see that the
choice to be in the US military, as my story tell you, sometimes is not made
consciously by many.
The story is to remind everyone that reads this that it does
not matter if the choice is ours or not, all Marines and Veterans end up
sacrificing immensely for the collective good for this country, and they all
are willing to fight to keep the country safe even despite of their own safety.
Many Marines and Veterans, as I could have possibly become
one of them, lose the fight for their own lives alone, and in obscurity many
years after the bullets have flown, and they die here among the citizens they
have sworn to protect.
So, on this 244th Marine Corps birthday and on Veterans
day, go beyond your own expectations and find it within you to not only thank
Veterans but to realize that Veterans need your appreciation, and on these days,
Veterans look up to the citizens to defend them and honor them, as they have
defend and honor them, and will continue to do so until there is not a breath
on our lungs.
Sgt Omar Bermejo
United States Marine Corps (Ret)
