Phil Martinez speaks with the dead-eyed seriousness of someone who has seen the worst the world has to offer and lived to tell about it. Of his tour of duty in Iraq he says simply, “It was hot. It smelled like trash, and the people hated us. Even the people we were trying to help would shoot at us if they got the chance.”
Just exactly how much our troops were despised became abundantly clear three weeks after he arrived in country. “We had just dropped off some school supplies to a village south of Baghdad," he says. "It was in an area we called the Triangle of Death. There was a loud explosion, and I saw a plume of smoke coming up out of the lieutenant’s truck ahead of us. We stopped. I thought; ‘IED’”
The front of the vehicle had been blown off, and there was debris scattered everywhere. Looking inside, Martinez saw his friend Choat lying on the floor, wounded and unconscious, the medics working frantically to save him. “When he came to, he couldn’t stand up, and his speech was slurred,” he says. “We called in a heli and evacuated him. He survived but lost his spleen, and had long-term brain damage.”
On the trip back, nobody spoke. “I saw my whole life flash before my eyes,” Martinez says. “In one second I had to grow up and quit being a punk kid. I was afraid, but I realized I had a responsibility to the other guys in my unit. Before, I thought life was a big joke. Now I knew I was not invincible, and I had to make some serious changes. I owed it to my family to straighten up. How do I want to be remembered? Not as a troublemaker, but as a good person. I reevaluated my life.”
It was a reevaluation long in coming. By his own admission, Martinez was a hell raiser in high school (Thomas Jefferson. Southeast Denver.). “We were into stealing cars, breaking into places. Lots of drinking, getting in fights, playing hooky,” he says.
Needless to say, he got kicked out and was reassigned to the Alternative Life Skills Center at 9th and Cherokee. He did manage to earn a high school diploma there, but just barely. “I had horrible grades, no money, no job prospects, and I’m thinking, ‘What’s next?’”
When his best friend went to jail for kidnapping and attempted murder, Martinez realized it was time for a course correction. He called a recruiter, enlisted in the Army, and went in a week after his 18th birthday.
“I did very well in basic,” he says. “That was the first time I wanted to learn and do my best.” He was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, NY, and deployed to Iraq as a cavalry scout in August, 2006.
Once or twice a month some vehicle in his convoy would get hit. But fortune favored Phil Martinez. He returned unscathed.
Now six years later, he has mixed feelings about the war. “When I first joined up, I thought it was a good thing. But after seeing it first hand, the experience changed my outlook. We tried to do the right thing, tried to help them out, wanted to help them build schools and feel safe. I hate to see all that time and effort wasted, but I think we were misled. The whole experience kind of sucked.”
Which is not to say that he learned nothing from it. “War puts things into perspective,” he says. “You learn to respect the small things; a hot shower, clean water, a full night’s rest. You learn to love your family and friends, and to put others before yourself. All the guys had each other’s back. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”
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