Hero's Home Coming(George Mills) Home Coming

It is afternoon, late, almost 3:00. The wind is blowing and it is hot. It is always hot in the afternoon. We stopped for a quick MRE lunch two hours ago and drank water. I have heartburn again, damn MREs always give me heartburn. We are stopping for a water break.

We are on a dirt Road running through an Afghan Village. They all look the same.

Me and my buddies. A squad of soldiers, spread-out, in uniform, loaded down and armed.

Afghan children in the village see us and run over to us, shouting, hands out.

Some of my squad mates are laughing and joking with the children and hand out snacks and candy bars.

As I drink and look around I see movement on a rooftop and then……………...

Gun shots erupt from nearby building rooftops all around us.

I hear the shots and bullets whipping past me and ricocheting off the ground and the nearby buildings. Run to take cover against the nearest building, a small house.

Many of my buddies have been hit by gunfire and are laying in the street, screaming for help.

Several children have also been shot, i hear them crying. I see what I guess are family members of the children, Mothers, older Brothers and Sisters in nearby buildings screaming for their children.

I am SPC Martinez. I have seen a little action before, only once was it this close. I look for direction from a Sergeant or an officer. Nothing, just screaming and gun shots.

Two children are on the ground 20 feet from me. I run over and pick them up and haul them back to the building. I kick open the door and go inside, taking the children out of the gunfire. A family is huddled inside, scared and crying. I hand the children to the woman and hope she understands what I am saying and my hand gestures, that I need her to stop the bleeding of the hurt children.

Several of my squad mates have set up around nearby buildings to return fire.

I ran back out to the street several times grabbing nearby soldiers and children, moving them to the shelter of the building.

I stop for a moment in the building to catch my breath and peer out the door to the street. I hear more gun fire but do not have a clean line of sight to the roof tops. where the snipers are.

I see dead or dying children and soldiers still out in the street.

A medic from my squad is lying down next to another squad mate, PVT Meads?

The medic, I think his name is McAllister? He is trying to stop Mead’s bleeding from a chest wound. The medic sees me and yells, “Sucking Chest Wound, Help Me”.

I ran out to the Medic and Meads, McAllister yells instructions at me, I follow as best I can.

As more gunshots are whizzing by, I yell that we need to get Meads to the building.

I look towards the end of the street and i see movement on a rooftop. The sun flashes off of something, then I see a muzzle flash.


Home Coming

An Army Captain standing with a SFC knocks on the front door of a house in a small town in America.


My name is Robert Larson, actually I am now Captain Larson in the United States Army. I was asked to volunteer as a Casualty Assistance Officer after I was injured in action.

One of my assignments was a young soldier of Mexican descent, SPC John Martinez who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. His next of kin was listed as his mother Sarah Martinez. I served with SPC Martinez earlier that year. He was assigned to my unit as a communications technician and radio operator. We had seen some action and I recall that SPC Martinez was awarded a medal during that action. I was injured during that fire fight. I woke up in the hospital with several wounds in my legs where bullets had struck me, shattering my right femur that had to be rodded and pinned. A few months later I was rehabilitated with a limp, later I was reassigned to work as a Casualty Assistance Officer.

I arrived at her home with my assistant SFC Oscar Peterson at about 3:00 PM, we knocked on the door. The door opened a few minutes later. The woman that answered the door was elderly, i guessed in her 60s or older. She was short, wearing a gray shawl over a blue flower print dress and a cross hung from her neck on a thin gold chain. She smiled at us as she answered the door. I asked if she was Sarah Martinez, she paused before she answered in Spanish what sounded like a question, something about amigo and Juan. It sounded like she was asking if we were friends of Juan. The file on the family did not specify that the family did not speak English. My Spanish is very limited, and SFC Peterson could not speak a word of spanish. I asked again for Sarah Martinez and could tell by the answer that this woman was not Sarah, that Sarah was her daughter and would be home soon. She gestured for us to come in, i guessed she intended for us to wait for Sarah.

We accepted the offer. She introduced herself as Maria. She showed us to the living room, gestured for us to have a seat on the couch, she gestured for us to wait and left the room.

She returned a few minutes later with iced tea and sugar cookies and set them on the coffee table in front of us. Then she picked up a photo album and sat down between Oscar and I. She open the book and I saw that it was a family album. She started to show us pictures and I am assuming tell us all about them. She showed us a picture of a baby boy in a womans arms and said something about Sarah and Juan. She continued to speak and I could only guess that she was telling us about her grandson Juan or John Martinez. A few minutes later the front door opened and a boy about 10 years old walked into the living room. Maria spoke to him, sounded again like she said amigos and Juan. The boy looked at, and using perfect english asked us “where is John?”

I replied that he is not back yet and we are here to speak with Sarah. He sat down and started to eat a cookie and told us that his name is Tony, Sarah is his mother and John is his brother. As Maria began to speak and point at pictures I asked him what she was saying. He began to translate for us as Maria told us all about John as a baby and young boy. How good he is at sports, how he lost his father to a car accident right after Tony was born. She told us that he loved America and was so proud of his mother becoming a citizen and he wanted to serve. Tony told us how John was the best big brother, taught him how to play baseball, ride a bike and everything.

The front door opened again and a very pretty young woman entered the room. Then Tony introduced us as friends of John's.

She introduced herself as Teresa, his girlfriend, and asked us where he was and when he was coming home? I told her that I was not able to tell her that right now. She said she understood. She got letters from John all the time and he could never tell her where he was or what he was doing. She told us that they were engaged to get married as soon as he gets leave and that she was pregnant and he would be a daddy soon. Maria continued to speak telling us about John and soon Teresa was telling us how they were Highschool sweethearts and how proud she was of him joining the Army. That we was going to go to school on the GI bill when he gets home and wants to be an electrical engineer because he was always good at making things and fixing things.

Teresa continued to tell us how proud she was and that John was a real hero. That he was awarded the bronze star for saving some soldiers. As she was speaking I began to remember details of the attack that I had not remembered before. All the details just started to flood back to me. I remembered every moment of that fire fight.

We were on patrol. There is never a patrol that is routine, but this one started out that way. We were moving through a village when an explosion behind us changed everything. We had several humvees. One of the humvees was lost in an explosion of debris. The rifles shots from assault rifles were all around us. Before I could assess the situation and give orders, my driver and gunner were both hit and unresponsive and I had been hit in the leg. My door swung open as a soldier reached in, grabbed me and drug me into the closest building. He ran back into the street. I heard more gun fire, but could not get up to help. The first soldier returned with two more soldiers, one was helping him drag another into the building. The first soldier ran back out to the street again. The remaining soldiers, one hurt with blood spilling out from a chest wound. The second soldier moved with precision, he was a medic. He looked at me and saw my leg. Instantly he reached out to my injuries and wrapped my wounds in field dressings then returned to work on the injured soldier with the chest wound.

Another moment passed and I felt light headed. Before passing out I looked up and saw the first soldier return again with two more soldiers, dragging one. He knelt down beside me and held a radio microphone in front of me and yelled “orders”. I told my CO where we were, that we had wounded and that we needed immediate support and extraction. Then I passed out.

The soldier that saved me and so many others that day was SPC Martinez. He ran back out into the streets under sniper fire from all directions to pull a total of 6 wounded soldiers to safety. The medic kept all 6 alive until we could be extracted while SPC Martinez and the rest of our squad held the position returning fire.

Teresa spoke and I returned from the memory to the present and realized that I had tears running down my cheeks. She asked if i was ok and did i know any of them. Lamely I said that I was moved by her words.

We sat as the family continued to tell us more about John and his family.

A short time later, I heard the front door again as another woman entered the living room.

As she looked at us, I could see that she knew who we were and why we were here. She started to shake her head NO, waved her hands at us and began to scream as she dropped to her knees.

We explained to the grief stricken family why we were there and sat with them as they consoled each other.

Prior to leaving my office that morning I read over the briefing of the action that took SPC Martinez’s life. He was in Afghanistan. His unit was patrolling the streets, he was on foot.

Al Qaeda terrorists attached a group of civilians. His unit was nearby. He rushed toward the gun shots. He was seen grabbing up Afghan children and moving them from the streets to safety when an explosion knocked him to the ground. Covered in shrapnel wounds, he continued to pull soldiers, civilians and children to safety. As he reached a pinned down medic helping a wounded soldier a sniper took his life.

SPC John Martinez was Posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

If you want to meet this Hero, you are welcome to visit him in Arlington, Virginia, where he can be found with his fellow American heros. And please, welcome them all home.

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