ABOUT THE SERIES: Plato wrote that "only the dead have seen the end of war." The decision to go to war is the most important a civilized society ever makes. For a nation to win a war, its citizens must support and believe in the cause, and they must understand the consequences, casualties and costs of the decision to go to war. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being waged thousands of miles from Merced County and the San Joaquin Valley. Yet, because no man, and no community, is an island, the effects from those wars ripple through Merced and Mercedians in ways they may not even feel. This 13-part series, "The War Comes To Merced," tries to identify and explain some of those ripple effects on real people in our community. The stories are nonpartisan and apolitical -- their only motive is to inform. With accurate information, citizens can understand what the current wars mean for them. We hope this series brings you the information you need to make your judgments about these wars.
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Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2007
Back home from Iraq, veterans settle into new lives
For weeks after he came home from Iraq, Salvador Mejia couldn't keep his car between the white lines. He knew he should stay in his lane, but his Ford Explorer just kept straying to the middle of the road.
And he couldn't keep his eyes from scanning the shoulders for IEDs.
"I was pretty paranoid at first," said the 26-year-old Mejia, now a Merced police officer. "It took a while to readjust."
Going to the grocery store was hard, too. There were too many people there to keep track of. "It felt weird to go anywhere without my rifle," Mejia recalls.
Three years later, he says, the after-effects have subsided. But thoughts of the war zone where he spent 12 months never end. "I guess it's always in the back of my mind," he says. "I think about the guys who are still there all the time."
Hundreds of thousands of Americans have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan in the wake of Sept. 11. The military cannot provide numbers on how many of them call Merced home, but estimates place that figure in the hundreds. Of those, three died fighting. Some are still away. Many have come home. For them, life back in Merced is both a welcome respite and a place where they can remember a lot -- sometimes too much.
Salvador Mejia
From the time Salvador Mejia was a little boy, he knew he wanted to be a soldier.
The oldest of four children and his parents' only son, Mejia grew up in Prunedale, not far from Fort Ord. "We'd pass by it all the time driving down the freeway when I was little, and I could see them out there marching," Mejia recalls.
And he loved G.I. Joe, he says, smiling. "All I ever wanted to be was a soldier."
He joined the Army three weeks out of high school. He was still 17, so he had to convince his mother to sign off on the decision. He spent two-and-a-half months in basic training at Fort Benning, Ga. "It was the middle of summer. People were passing out left and right (from the heat)," Mejia said. "It was the hardest thing I'd ever done before.
"I loved it."
Mejia scored high enough on the written tests to get a communications job. After six months at Fort Gordon, 250 miles east of Fort Benning, he was sent to his first duty station at Fort Hood, Texas. He met his wife, Linda, there -- she was a supply sergeant -- and spent two-and-a-half years learning his specialty, retransmission communication. In 2002 he left on a 15-month mission as part of a United Nations unit that patrolled near the Demilitarized Zone between North Korea and South Korea. Halfway through, he came home on leave to get married. By then, his wife was out of the Army and living in Los Banos.
Mejia was 21. He'd been promoted to sergeant. His four years with the Army were almost up when he decided to re-enlist for another two. "I guess I thought I was still too young to get out," he explains. "I wanted more experience."
Three months after he re-enlisted, the war in Iraq started. Eight months after that, he was on a plane to Baghdad.
"I think it took me a couple of days just to realize I was there -- that this was all for real," Mejia remembers. "I was upset about going, and it was really hard on my wife. But at the same time, after all the training they'd put into me, I would have felt like a failure if I hadn't gone."
After two days there, Mejia fell into a well during a night mission near Samarra, about an hour north of Baghdad. "It was pitch-black out, and I guess I wasn't used to the night-visions yet." He reckons he fell 10 feet. The water was up to his chin. "I was really scared for a few minutes that they'd never find me," he says. After about 20 minutes, another soldier heard his calls. He got out.
