An Iraq War Tragedy: Remembering Andrew Julian Aviles

“Andy…I still remember everything about that day. You and I stayed up late that night watching the artillery streak across the sky towards their targets….we must have joked around about why we joined and what we were gonna do for hours. The next morning, we still were talking about various things when you walked over to my track to grab the water jugs in the back of my track….I was on watch and saw you grab your two jugs and start to leave…I said, ” I will talk to you later” you responded in kind….little did I know, 3 minutes later, there would be no later. I felt guilty for your death for a long time, my friend, even though I knew that the last thing you would have wanted was for me to feel that way….Lord knows, I wish to God that I would have distracted you for another couple minutes…I wish anything would have happened so that you would not have been on your track when that round hit it….I am so sorry….I prayed for your forgiveness for a long time…knowing that you would have told me that there was nothing to forgive…I love you man, And I will always remember you…I swear that…God bless your family.” – John Barling, Florida

The first time she heard his deep, strong, extremely loud cry, Norma Aviles was aghast at this noisy baby and impressed by his lung capacity. “Who is that baby? My, he sounds very different and is really making his presence felt!” was her first thought. And then the footsteps stopped outside her hospital room where she was recovering from a C- section, after giving birth to her second child- a son that she wanted very badly. “And there he was, this boy with the big voice..mine..beautiful with curly hair and I fell in love with him in that very moment. The nurse complained he was waking up all the other babies when he cried and I laughed.”

Norma is from Puerto Rico and met her husband Oscar in New York in a bank where both worked. Friendship turned into love and after getting married they lived in New York for 15 years. Their older daughter Kristine, was born followed by Andrew or Andy as he was lovingly called and then the youngest Matthew.

Norma Aviles, talks of her son Andy in the same doting way all mothers talk about their sons. The only difference is that unlike all mothers, she is among the select company that has lost this precious gift of life to a futile and unwarranted war-a war that has destroyed lives both in the United States and in Iraq and made US one of the most hated nations in many parts of the world.

“Andy was always full of mischief. He is very bright, and full of fun,” says Norma as she inadvertently starts talking in the present tense. “I remember how he was just learning how to walk, and I put him on one end of the room and then went to the other side and opened my arms asking him to walk to me. He started walking, and then gathered speed and soon he was running towards me-I waited, my arms wide open. He came running and then ran right past me, and I heard his laughter. He had done that deliberately to tease me, and he was only about one year old then.”

The child who would go on to become an ace student, athlete, graduating 3rd in his class and landing a full scholarship to Florida State University was a reluctant pre-schooler. “He did not like going to school and had a hard time adjusting because he was so attached to us,” says Norma and adds, “I had to stay in his class for a month as a helper to the teacher so he could see me. Then I slowly moved out saying I will wait for you outside the class. One time I was late- he was so upset not to find me outside, it broke my heart. I was never late again.”

The family moved to Florida, and Andy liked being in his new school so much that he was transformed. “Every time I went to pick him up, I always saw him standing in the middle of a group, the center of attention, all the way through High School. I don’t know what he would be telling those kids, but people were glued to him listening. And yet for some reason I was always very protective about him even though he was so self assured. I didn’t want him hurt because he was so warm hearted and friendly..and yet today I feel I failed him..I couldn’t protect him,” Norma’s voice trails off the tears beginning to flow..

There is silence… as she cries softly. Ask her about his trying a hand at cheer leading and the tears soon mingle with laughter, as Norma remembers her super athletic, extremely masculine son, signing up for cheer leading-all for the gals! She also recalls that Andy was an excellent speaker and had a way with words. “Every time he got into trouble he knew how to talk his way out of it. There I would be screaming and he would start with – but Mommm… it’s the middle child thing and middle children are supposed to get into trouble! And just as I would be ready to ground him, he would tell me why he did what he did, and he would be so convincing, I’d buy it. I used to tell him, Andy you should become a lawyer. You would out talk any body and you know how to convince anyone. He would laugh and say, “ I know but I don’t have to be a lawyer to do that. I want to get into business and real estate-that’s where the money is!

“Andy was funny. We had our inside jokes. Like we would go to church and I can’t sing to save my life, but I felt the church was the only place I could sing along with everyone else, and so I would pick up the book and he would look down at me and say-“Stop singing!” But I would keep on singing while he would pretend to try and snatch the book from me. Or if someone would sing off key he would look pointedly at me and we’d laugh. When he went to the Marines for basic training, he would tell me jokingly-Mom I go to church every Sunday and they sing the same songs you sing at church..” Norma’s voice breaks again as she adds, ‘ Now when I go to church..I can’t sing..I don’t sing.. Today, I remember my son’s school days. How I would be running around chauffeuring my kids..all my kids have been so active..now I go to his school and I sit in the parking lot and I cry, when I remember all those moments of driving him around..”

Oscar says his son liked to always take on new things and whatever he did he wanted to be the best in it. “I have always been a perfectionist myself and I guess he got that from me. When we used to sit down to eat, he used to set his chair just right and if it moved even a little bit, he would get up, re set the chair and ease into the chair again. I used to wear long sleeves shirts and would roll them and Andy would do that too, but then he would always stretch out his arms to make sure they were even length. I would say occasionally-Andy why are you going through these gyrations? My daughter would then look pointedly at me and say Dad you are the one who always

wants things just perfect and so you are the one who created this monster!

Everything Andy did he did to perfection. He had a photographic memory and a mind like a sponge. I remember I used to teach Sunday school and once gave a test on the ten commandments. The week before I didn’t see him study at all and reminded him. He said don’t worry dad I have it covered. Come Friday and then Saturday and I still didn’t see him study. On Sunday he took the test and I decided to check his paper first and he had everything right and got a 100. But he kept teasing me-Hey dad I can’t read the grade on the paper, can you tell me what it is? All he had to do was look at something once and he had it memorized. Andy excelled at everything he tried his hand at. He excelled in sports and was on the wrestling team. He would memorize dialogues of all the cartoons as a kid and then act as director! In fact he ended up in a school play because one of the actors was a no show and Andy knew every one’s dialogues and volunteered to step in. He knew every body’s lines.”

Both Norma and Oscar say that in 1991 when the second Persian Gulf war happened, both their sons were very young. Andy who was born in April 1984 was 7 and Matthew even younger, but even then Norma would think about the soldiers who went to Iraq. “ I used to worry and think how I would feel if my two sons had to go to war, but of course I didn’t think about it as intensely or as deeply as I do today.” The Aviles didn’t have any plans for their kids to join the Military, but then Andy joined the ROTC and came home and said that he was thinking of joining the Marines. Norma recalls her disbelief and dismay. “ I said are you crazy? But Andy said, I am just going to be a reservist mom. I’m still going to go to college.” I never thought as a reservist he would be in any kind of danger. Andy was so excited he was going overseas. He looked at it as an adventure and not war and a way of serving his country. He was only 18 years old and at that age every thing seems like an adventure.’

Oscar says he could always look back and say if only he hadn’t allowed him maybe Andy would still be here. “ But then I know that when he turned 18, he would have signed up on his own because he really wanted to go. He chose the Marines because the best people go there. It is the toughest branch of the armed forces and not every body that goes there makes it through their very vigorous training. He wanted to see if he could do it and actually graduated top of his class. He also wanted to do it because he was so community oriented.

“Andy’s first letter said-well I have good news and bad news”, recalls Norma. “The good news is I have already found my camp and am doing okay. The bad news is I’m on the front line.” Norma remembers panicking. “I thought to myself, Oh my God why have they put him on the front line. He tried to make us feel better by writing in every letter-don’t worry, I’m fine, I’m well protected.” Oscar says their son probably didn’t tell them things that would have worried them. “Anything he wrote to us was upbeat and positive and we heard later from others that he was the one lifting up every one’s spirits with his happy go lucky nature.”

“But if I knew then what I know now, I would have never let him sign up,” says Norma. “ They just don’t care. When I asked them why did they send my son, a young 18 year old reservist to the front line? They said-the way the war is running they needed the services of a tracker.”

Andy left in Feb 2003. On April 7th he was killed in central Iraq when an enemy artillery round struck the vehicle in which he was riding.

Since her son had left for Iraq, the seemingly normal days were touched by an invisible, lingering fear of the unknown. Norma was scared and so was Oscar, but both are deeply religious and Oscar says he always believed that the Lord would protect their son and bring him back.

The morning of the 7th April began as usual. Her husband was listening to the radio and reading the morning newspaper and Norma was getting ready to go to work. Then she heard that two Marines were killed in Iraq. “ It was all over the news and I went to my room and said I don’t need to hear this. Please God don’t let it be Andy.” Norma left for work, dropped her younger son to his school and heard someone on a radio talk show speaking about the two Marines who had been killed with indifference. “The talk show host was saying most callously-well what do you expect? There’s a war and people do die. I thought how can he be so cold when there are thousands of people like me worrying about their loved one in the war?”

Intensely worried, Norma called the Marines to check if the dead soldiers were from her son’s unit. “I told them I need to know where my son was and that he was okay. They asked me his name and the person on the other line said he will find out and call me back.” No one did.

That night, close to 10 p.m. Norma saw a car pull into her drive way from her dining room and 5 Marines in uniform stepping out. Petrified she ran to her husband to tell him. “ The Red Cross had said to me if they do not come inside then you have nothing to worry. But soon they rang the doorbell.”

Norma promptly went into denial. She tried to tell herself, the Marines were there just to tell her Andy was injured but okay, or that he was fine. “I asked them – is he hurt? They said no. And then I just wanted them to undo everything they were telling me. I started screaming – Please… please don’t tell me… It’s a mistake.” Neither of the other two children were at home. Kristine was in Gainesville at college and Matthew was working that evening. The Marines went and got them both. “To this day, I don’t remember what happened next. All I remember is my relatives coming in and crying and then it began to sink in – Oh my god it must be true… They are all crying… it just didn’t register. Today, five years later, I still imagine it was a big mistake. ” Her voice breaks and trails off into silent, deep rooted grief.

The Military lifted her broken spirit as love came pouring along with unlimited support. “They were very kind, the highest ranked officers..it was as if they had lost their own flesh and blood, their own child.” Norma participated in a documentary ‘Mothers’ Day”, where grieving mothers and activists carry a united message of saying no to war. “ I wanted people to know that those who gave their lives for the country are not unknown strangers. They have a name, a face-they are some body’s son or daughter, some body’s brother or sister, husband or wife. They are not mere statistics.”

Oscar says he was heart broken and deeply angry at God initially. “I think losing a child is the worst pain a parent can go through. You never think of burying your children. You think of them burying you. What was really frustrating was that here was a young man who had so much going for him, so much potential to be any thing he wanted to be and excel at it had he lived. He had the intelligence, the personality and the charisma. People just loved him. And what hurt even more was the fact that he was not even 19 when he died because of a war that we should not have even entered in the first place. And I know thousands of families feel like us. Losing a child brings a pain that is never going to dissipate-you just learn to live with it. Its been five years and I know what we have gone through and go through every single day. I would not wish it on my worst enemy.

I have a deep faith in God and in my religion. When it happened I was angry. I said to Him – I prayed to you every day for my son and yet you took him away. Why did it happen to me? But when I got the chance to sit down and analyze it. Today, to be at peace with myself, now I say that God needed a really good Marine to guard the gates of heavens ad he took the best Marine there was.

What gives me strength also is the fact that we will all go some day, and whenever that will be for me, I know my son will be waiting for me and he is going to give me one of those big strong hugs that he gave me before and we will go have a beer together!

I console myself thinking that it would have been worse had he returned and then died in an accident. At least this way he died a hero, fighting for his country. And maybe its easier to accept death in a war than if someone dies in an avoidable accident or is killed in some other way.”

Along with the support there are some who callously say ”Who told him to sign up? May be he needed the money.”

“They would have never said that had they known my son. He felt it was his duty to serve his country and no, he didn’t need the money. He already had a full scholarship to Florida State,” says Oscar. That scholarship was given to his young brother Matthew, who initially took but left Florida State and returned back to his parents in Tampa. “It was too soon for him,” says Norma.

A touching tribute, to honor Andy appeared in the form of a small memorial that was created by strangers who are still unknown to the Aviles. It was on a median across from Macdill air force base. It began with a picture of Andy; added later were bricks, flowers, a cross, a rosary. Both Norma and Oscar went there to seek solace even though their son was buried at the Arlington Cemetery that honors all fallen heroes. And then on Valentine’s day, 2006, Oscar went with flowers in the evening and came back distraught. “It had become a shrine,” recalls Norma, “ but it was against the law to have a memorial on the highway. It becomes a safety hazard. It was there for three years, and then suddenly it vanished. It was not vandalized. It was removed and everything was immaculately clean. I went there and asked people at the two restaurants nearby and they said they did not see anything. They were aghast too. We called the Air force, the Mayor’s office – nobody knew anything. I think someone called the secret service because Bush was supposed to come there in a couple of days and they didn’t want him to see the picture of a dead marine from a useless war started by him. Interestingly after he left we were told the picture was found at the back of a DOT truck.” Still, while the memorial is gone two streets have been named after Andy Aviles.

Today Norma and Oscar talk against the war with great passion and meet many like minded people. “ We know the pain,” says Oscar, “ and we don’t want anyone else to go through this loss and suffering. So we are more outspoken than we were before. I know there are a lot of people who were against the war and did not speak up strongly against it. We were one of them but if there was to be a draft, then all these silent people would become very vocal about the horrible consequences. Bush had every one convinced we needed to go to war. Today whatever negative things happen in Iraq, never make front page news. Its always put at the back, so people don’t know what is going on, or seriously think about it, unless they carefully go through the paper..”

Each year the Aviles go to Arlington cemetery and visit their son’s grave to pray and talk to him. “I talk to my son and let him know how much we love him,” says Oscar and adds, “I pray to God and I pray to my son to be our angel and protect his mother and his siblings. I can honestly say that I know the pain my wife goes through every single day, because I go through it myself. I let her know I’m here for her to hug her and hold her and cry with her.’

There are many of us who believe that our loved ones may not be with us physically but they are there in spirit and many unexplained incidents occur at times to make us believe that they want us to know they are around. Oscar Aviles says he has had similar experiences and it usually happens around Andy’s birthday or his death anniversary in April.

This year in April, a few days before they left for Arlington, Oscar remembers an incident which he feels was his son’s way of telling him he was around. “ I had got the morning newspaper when I heard a cell phone ring. I thought my younger son Matt had left his phone and when it continued to ring I got up to look for the phone just in case someone was trying to reach Matthew. As I looked all over for the phone I suddenly realized that Matthew had been house sitting for a friend and had spent the night there. I knew then it was Andy. I told my wife who walked in that it was a good thing I didn’t answer that call or we would have had one helluva a long distance bill! That was Andy..he was always a prankster. And it touches me that my son loves us to still want to be around us.”

For the Aviles, Andy’s loss has changed their lives forever in so many ways. They both say they have become more fearless and don’t hesitate to speak up and stand up for what they believe in. “I was always quiet, and shy, always worried about little things,” says Norma, “I don’t do that any more. I’m not afraid of dying. When my young 18 year old son, who was so full of life, energy and happy, is gone, I know that any one and everyone can go at any time.”

Oscar agrees and says what also gives him strength are the young children he teaches every day. “In every one of these kids I see a little bit of Andy, and I can take a bit of a piece from every one of the kids and make an Andy out of them and try to fill that piece that is missing in the puzzle of our lives.”