‘A PROMISE MADE, A PROMISE KEPT’
Shannon Robinson, Staff Writer
Daniel Jacob Perez
US Marines, Sergeant E5
On September 11, 2001, standing on the field in the middle of football practice, 14-year-old Danny Perez was informed about the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and The Pentagon. Bolstered by a sense of duty, that afternoon, this 14-year-old kid went to the recruiting offices of the Army, Airforce, and Marine Corps.
Perez walked into each office, declaring he was ready to sign up! Obviously, he wasn’t taken seriously, but something at the Marine Corps recruiting office was about to change Danny’s life forever. Recruiting officer, Staff Sergeant Jones, admired his commitment, but he laughed and said “You’re a little too young, kid.” “Then coach me,” Danny replied. That exchange turned into three years of training and preparation with Jones.
At 17, Danny took the oath and joined the US Marine Corps. The clever kid, now a United States Marine, had fulfilled the promise he had made to himself on that fateful day in 2001.
Perez’s first deployment was to Al-Asad Airbase in Iraq. He had received his first meritorious promotion after at engineer school; as soon as he got to Iraq, he managed to piss everyone off when he received his second meritorious promotion to Corporal. As an Engineer Equipment Officer, Perez led eight other marines at the flight line, loading and unloading supplies into HeLos that were transported out to other bases in the region.
His first deployment, everything was business as usual, from antagonizing the reservists, organizing the fight rings for the base’s pet camel spider, and the occasional sandstorm. “You’d just see a wall of sand coming towards you” and have about an hour and a half to get everything done before it hit. Between their duties and the elements, they found ways to entertain themselves.
Then there were the Black-Out days. Black-Outs were the worst because it meant the base would go dark with electricity and power shut off. Behind the scenes, every soldier stood at attention while casket after casket was wheeled before them, each one draped in the American flag, and somberly loaded onto the C-130. Black-Outs meant their brothers and sisters in arms paid the ultimate price.
Perez deployed on two tours to Iraq with a stint in S. Korea separating them.
In Korea, his duty was to strengthen the South Korean Army to intimidate North Korea. Perez was in charge of 30 soldiers and trained the Korean Marines how to ”clear house,” sometimes letting his eagerness get the best of him and the “spirit of the law” take over. Throwing a flash-bang through a wall or kicking a trainee in the chest, Danny quickly gained a dubious reputation for acting out of instinct and not the letter of the law.
Danny was stationed in Ramadi just West of Baghdad for his second deployment during the 2009 elections in Iraq. After his first deployment, having been so affected by the ritual of the Black Out days, Perez volunteered himself for every mission that came up. As a Platoon Sergeant, he ran convoys, swept IED clean-up, rebuilt base barriers, and eventually worked private security for an Iraqi Security company.
Perez and five other marines in his command patrolled the site daily. “You weren’t supposed to,” but he said they became friends with the company owner. Danny recalled the feast they ate together at the end of the mission. It was a brief moment of comfort and normalcy.
“And after that is when everything went to shit.”
There was a month and a half long mission that required two welders. Perez trained for three weeks, hopping from base to base (including Saddam’s palace in Kapabul) to do smaller welding gigs before going to stay in Baharia with the main welder, Cpl. Beyer. Early every morning, Perez and Beyer traveled into Karma to patrol the streets and measure culvert openings where IEDs would usually be hidden. Then, they’d travel back to Baharia, weld grates for the culverts, and return to Karma at night with the grates to close off the culverts.
The last time he went out, he exited the truck, took off his helmet and body armor, and that’s when the sniper fire surrounded him. “Whatever terrorist sniper it was, he was a terrible shot” Perez recalls as rounds kept missing him while he welded the grate shut. By the end of the mission, Danny was drained and the damage done by his two tours kept him in that shadow place; he had enough.
However, with an unfulfilled death wish hanging over his head, Danny joined the reserves with the hope of going on tour again. He spent ten months in the reserves, and on the day he was promoted to Sergeant, Perez was discharged. Danny volunteered for Devil Dog Nation and DFW Devil Dogs, answering calls on a helpline, but his arduous adjustment back into civilian life was just beginning.
After months of self-medication, stress, and heartbreak, Danny said “I hit rock bottom and thankfully, rock bottom didn’t kill me.” He suffered a psychological breakdown and ended up in the hospital. He spent almost a month at the VA Hospital in Dallas, and soon he transferred to the VA Hospital in Bonham for almost a year-long rehab program. He met with a counselor and had to complete journaling entries to work through his PTSD. Looking back at his experience there, he says the camaraderie with other veterans is what impacted him the most.
When asked what he did to cope with his PTSD, Danny smiled and walked to his kitchen saying “come here for a second.” Following him, he pulled out a bag of 20 different prescriptions.
For the time being, this is Danny’s new way of life. But this, by no means, is the end of Danny’s story. The once innocent and precocious 14-year old boy dead-set on serving his country, to the war-weary Veteran trying to cope daily with the visions inside his head, both versions will write the next chapter of healing and slowly settling into his new normal as one who survived to tell not only his story but the stories of those who didn’t come back.