Latino Veterans Hit Hardest By Economic Struggle

Latino Veterans Hit The Hardest, Often The Easiest Prey
Army Veteran Enrique Gonzalez rests his head as he waits for the casket arrival of U.S. Army Warrant Officer Jose Luis Montenegro Jr., Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012, at McCreery Aviation in McAllen, Texas. Montenegro was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., and was serving his third tour of duty overseas when his helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan's Logar province. (AP Photo/The Monitor, Gabe Hernandez) MAGS OUT; TV OUT
Army Veteran Enrique Gonzalez rests his head as he waits for the casket arrival of U.S. Army Warrant Officer Jose Luis Montenegro Jr., Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012, at McCreery Aviation in McAllen, Texas. Montenegro was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., and was serving his third tour of duty overseas when his helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan's Logar province. (AP Photo/The Monitor, Gabe Hernandez) MAGS OUT; TV OUT

“Hang in there baby! You’re almost done.”

That was the best I could offer in my panicked, generally unintelligible speech of encouragement during my wife’s labor... at least the best I could offer from the heart of a war zone, 7000 miles away.

As if watching my wife go through labor on a tiny computer screen isn’t “exciting” enough, the Taliban decided to spice it up a bit that day. In the middle of a 36-hour labor that eventually ended in an emergency C-section, I heard the low rumble all too familiar to our daily lives in Kandahar: suicide bombers detonated themselves at the gates of our base, while another Talib fighter fired a rocket over the fence that exploded near my outdoor, wi-fi hotspot. We’re under attack, again.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot