VALLEY'S POOR CANNON FODDER FOR MILITARY

By Juan Montoya
There is a family grieving a dead soldier in La Paloma.
Before that, it was Los Fresnos. And before that it was Brownsville, San Benito, Rio Hondo, Mission, McAllen, etc.,
Since the war began in March 2003, 30 service members from the Rio Grande Valley have been killed in Iraq.
The latest is Adriana Alvarez, 20, of San Benito, who became the Rio Grande Valley’s first servicewoman to be killed in that war. She was the third soldier from San Benito to die there.
Staff Sgt. Hector Leija, of Raymondville was the 22nd to die, and shop teacher Richard Garcia commented at the time: "Why is everyone in Raymondville going into the service?”’ Garcia said. “I guess that has to go with the economy. They think they’re going to get educated. They didn’t count on this happening. Instead of easing up, it’s getting worse.”
Leija was the second native of this town of about 9,700 people to die in Iraq. Leija, 27, died in Baghdad of wounds suffered during combat.
On June 20, 2006, military sources reported that Kristian Menchaca, of Brownsville, was found in Youssifiyah along with the body of a companion. The bodies of the two soldiers were mutilated and booby-trapped,
The fact is that the Rio Grande Valley's contribution to the casualty lists is abnormally high, leading one surprised state representative to complain that his district had the most people to die in the nation's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than any other district in Texas.
But why should that surprise us?
Menchaca's relatives, before the military command's spin control flaks muzzled them, criticized the government for allowing him and his companion to be held captive and heard about the news from Iraqi media before the military contacted them.
His aunt said that Menchaca had been working at a fast-food restaurant but that the lure of a sign-up bonus and promise of an education had proved irresistible to the low-income youth.
In the case of the latest casualty, her parents said that she entered the military hoping to pay for her education and then become a law enforcement officer.
"She wanted to pursue a career in the criminal justice department and she decided the best way was to get into the military," said a sister.
After the Army limited comments on their son's death, Menchaca was made out to be defending our freedom and that of the Iraqi people. Suddenly, it's not economic need that drove these kids into military service, but rather the patriotic motivation to help our Arab brothers from tyranny.
Likewise, expect that to happen in the case of the unfortunate young soldier from San Benito.
We really don't know what happened to Alvarez, yet.
The U.S. Army policewoman was found Wednesday in Baghdad with a gunshot wound.
Was it the Iraqis? Was it a crime by her fellow soldiers?
No one knows, her sister said, adding that military officials were investigating her death.
"The family’s overwhelmed," Lydia Caballero, a spokeswoman for America’s Last Patrol, who said the organization was speaking on the family’s behalf, told a local daily.
"The family is very confused," Caballero told reporters early Friday evening. "In the last two or three hours everything began to sink in."
It didn't take long for State Rep. Eddie Lucio III to start the campaign rolling by hailing Alvarez as a hometown hero.
"The Rio Grande Valley, as Texas, has lost many — too many — like Pfc. Alvarez. She is unique, however, because she is the first young woman from our community to lose her life in this war," Lucio said in a news release. "While we grieve for our tremendous loss today, we also honor those that continue to fight tomorrow."
A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi chimed in saying Ortiz was asking for prayers for Alvarez’s family.
"I know that this is a difficult time for the Alvarez family but I know how proud our nation and the community of San Benito are of Pfc. Adriana Alvarez’s selfless service in defense of the United States," Ortiz said in a news release.
How about working to provide a meaningful education and employment opportunities here instead of crying over our dead kids when they take the only avenue they can see to better their situation Messrs. Lucio and Ortiz?
Pretty words and crocodile tears won't stop the carnage that is yet to come. And in the case of Ortiz, he's asking us to send him back to Washington after being there for more than 26 years in office. What has he done to give our youth a hand up instead of running off to join the military and to have our families confront this often inevitable consequence?
Pull out of Iraq now. And stop trying to continue a war against the people of Afghanistan. Fine tune our search for Osama Bin Laden (remember him?) and avenge our 3,000 dead in the Twin Towers and get out. That's all the American people want, not to invade and occupy inoffensive countries and then have our poor families in South Texas grieve a lifetime over the results.
(Update: News reports indicate that tgere are efforts underway to request U.S. Department of State permission to allow the girl's parents to come into the United States from Mexico and attend her funeral. This indicates the complexity of the U.S.-Mexico relationship where ties of blood and culture bind us in an inextricable embrace.)