My name is Jean Carlo Moncada.
I am a 27 year old Iraqi War Veteran. I was born in Venezuela but my parents are from Colombia and after I turned 1 year’s old my parents moved to Queens, New York.
One of the reasons I joined the Army Infantry was because I felt that this country has given me and my family the chance to pursue our dreams. My parents came here with nothing and after a few years of hard work and school my parents have a nice apartment and good professional careers.
No one in my family has ever served in the American military and I wanted to be the first. All my life I have been interested in the military but only until after September 11th was when I started to seriously consider it.
Being a Latino with all my friends and family being Latinos really didn’t help with the encouragement to join the service, everyone was telling me that I was silly to fight for this country and basically be a pawn for the president. Still I didn’t listen to anyone and eventually enlisted.
After Infantry boot camp I was stationed in Ft Drum, NY. I was part of 4th battalion 31st infantry regiment. There were all types of Latinos in my unit, we all automatically got along because we shared a common bond, being Latinos and in the service. Most of the stories were very similar , like how their friends were telling them not to join or how their parents felt like we could do something better with our lives. Still we were all proud to serve.
In June 2004 my unit was deployed to Iraq. I was very excited, like if my imagination from when I was a kid playing with war toys came to real life. It was a strange feeling but that all ended when my platoon got hit by a massive IED where 4 of my friends had to go home. That morning when I saw how big the crater was I realized that there are people here trying to kill me, people that don’t even know me.
I looked at the Iraqis very differently after that night. I just felt like they are not doing their part in trying to make their country better, letting their cousins, brothers and fathers run around and planning attacks against us and at the same time expecting us to give them care and help when they wanted it.
I also started to feel frustrated that we would even have to let some known insurgents go free only because they were the Sheiks of that area, even after great amounts of cash and anti-coalition propaganda was found on them.
I didn’t understand why a politician in Washington was telling me who I can and can’t arrest. I was the one on the ground getting shot at by these people and I can’t arrest someone only because we don’t want to get any Iraqis upset. That was a real bad feeling, like if the Iraqis are laughing in our faces for being so nice to them. I never expected for politics to actually be right in front of my face like that but it was and there was nothing I could do about it. Not all Iraqis are bad, there are some good decent people that did need our help and were very grateful to have us there.
My tour ended in June 2005. I feel proud that I served and experienced what I always wanted to experience. Helping some people and see a country that I would have probably never have visited on my own.
I also saw that politics does play a huge factor in war even if people lives are on the line. If anyone wanted to join I’ll tell them to go ahead and see for yourself, but don’t be surprised when you feel like you have your hands tied behind your back. That’s what I felt and I’m pretty sure any infantry veteran will tell you the same thing.
