In a rare and symbolic ritual under windswept skies at Camp Pendleton this month, the 1st Marine Division held a Battle Colors March off to War ceremony representing the division’s upcoming deployment to Afghanistan and to honor the six other forward deployments in the Blue Diamond’s storied 69-year history.
The 30-minute ceremony attended by veterans of the various eras marked the impending departure of some 7,000 Marines and sailors from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force who will end up in Afghanistan by April.
Here are a few slices of their lives:
THIRD TIME OUT
This time he’ll be leaving three children behind.
He will read books to them on video.
He will miss the first time his youngest child, 6-week-old Cailey Emma, crawls.
When Marine Sgt. Fortino Guzman leaves for Afghanistan next month – his third deployment – will be different.
During previous tours, his oldest Fortino Isaac, now 8, was too young to understand where dad was. Callisa Marie, who is now 7, arrived when he was in Kuwait in 2003.
“I was in Kuwait less than a week and I got a phone call that my daughter was born,” he said.
“When they were younger, they didn’t know what was going on,” said Fortino, 29, of his older kids. “Now that they know I am not going to be here, it might be a little bit harder.”
For a decade, Fortino’s time in the Corps and his married life has run on a parallel track, bringing him Marine comrades, three children and now to the threshold of a third tour. The key dates of the sergeant’s military life have been intertwined with benchmarks of his family life.
The parallels began in high school. He was the new kid.
He didn’t know anyone. Stayed quiet. Kept his head down.
Except he eyed that one girl, the one in second period English.
One day he wrote Betty Tovar a note, asking if she’d come to his 18th birthday party. She didn’t make it, but Fortino persisted. Soon, she agreed to attend his god sister’s quinceañera, a traditional 15th birthday celebration in many parts of Latin America.
In 1999, the high school sweethearts from Houston got married. A month later, Fortino, who in high school had joined the U.S. Marine Corps delayed entry program, was off to boot camp in San Diego.
Fortino, who was born in Morelia, Mexico, but raised in Texas, is a warehouse chief and platoon sergeant with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines Division, working on supplies and logistics.
While on tour, Fortino will miss his 30th birthday on Sept. 4, but he hopes to be back in time for his 11th wedding anniversary on Dec. 6 or, at least, be home for the holidays.
THE CEREMONY WAITS
His was a Valentine’s Day shotgun wedding in Las Vegas.
Cpl. Kevon Brown heads to Afghanistan next month for his first deployment, leaving a worried new bride Erika behind, the daughter of a U.S. Air Force serviceman, whom he met while he was stationed in Okinawa, Japan.
“I am doing what I want to do,” Kevon said. “I have a family and a lovely wife and the Marine Corps’ taking care of us.”
Kevon’s journey thus far has been one of triumph over heartache, turning despair into strength and finding love and a Marine family in the process.
His American father was a tourist in Jamaica when he fell in love with his mother, while visiting the Caribbean island nation. But the pair apparently fell out of love just as quickly.
Kevon was the product of the short-lived affair. Claudette Williams left for the United States to earn a better living, become a nurse, leaving Kevon behind with a family friend when he was about 10.
That’s when, unbeknownst to her, the caretaker beat him. When Williams learned of the abuse, she was furious and moved her son to live with his godmother. A few years later, she brought him to Miami, Fla.
Kevon, 21, a corporal in the 3rd Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marines, has come a long way from his troubled childhood.
He was a straight “A” student graduating from Miami Carol City Senior High School. There he played soccer and football, adding to sports accolades earned in Jamaica.
He jingled the medals he collected over the years at the other end of a telephone line during an interview, while on pre-deployment leave in Florida.
“You can hear it, right?” he asked, laughing.
The scars from the abuse have healed.
“(I) just let it go,” Kevon said. “I stopped feeling sorry for myself. It makes me stronger. Now I have more of a drive to do things.”
His first duty station was Okinawa, where on New Year’s Day he got a letter from his mother telling him she had breast cancer. Japan was also where he met Erika.
The couple wed on Valentine’s Day. A full ceremony will have to wait.
THROUGH THIS LENS
She’ll try to document everything.
Marines conducting exercises. Marines in combat. Marines on foot patrols and on supply routes.
When she arrives in Afghanistan next week on her first tour of duty, the woman – who as a little girl used a point and shoot camera to begin scrapbooking and later went on to shoot pictures for her high school yearbook and newspaper – will have successfully blended her passions: military service and photography.
Lance Cpl. Sarah Novotny, 19, will be attached to various units throughout her expected 13- to 15-month deployment as a 1st Marine Division combat photographer.
“It’s very cool because we get to see a lot of things that a lot of Marines don’t get to,” she said.
With her deployment, Sarah will become part of a rare breed of women Marine combat photographers. While she will provide on scene commanders with images and essential battlefield information, her photographs could end up anywhere, from Marine Corps publications to mainstream media.
Three days before departure this week, Sarah had butterflies in her stomach. Sure, she’s gotten advice from veterans, practiced and trained at her craft. But this is the real deal.
“It still feels a little bit not real,” she said.
“Oh man, I am going to Afghanistan in, like, three days,” she finds herself thinking. “I am expecting it to be a challenge and I am willing to take this challenge.”
The girl from Streetsboro, Ohio, had to grow up quickly when, she said, her drug-addict mom dropped her and an older sister off at her aunt’s place when she was only 7. Initially she cried herself to sleep each night.
But soon, her late uncle Frank Alesci III, himself a Navy man, inspired her with tales and benefits of military service and his wife and her aunt Patti Alesci-Nelson nurtured her photography skills.
A year after she arrived at her aunt and uncle’s home in 1988, he was in a car crash and paralyzed from the neck down. He stayed her confidant though, someone she could turn to during teen-age stumbles. She grew up fast, helping her aunt care for Frank and five children in all, including her three cousins.
Her aunt, who’s like a mother to her, is proud of who Sarah has become.
“My aunt tells me all the time ‘I wish Uncle Frank was here. He’d be so proud of you,’ ” she said.
SPIRITUAL MOMENTS
This is his swan song, a not fully expected fourth deployment in a nearly two decades-long military career.
When U.S. Navy Petty Officer Wayne Lewis arrives in Afghanistan next month, he will put his knowledge of being a military sacristan possibly to use for a final time. And, very likely, also leave his wife and a teen-age son in formative years behind for the last time.
Wayne, 43, is a religious program specialist, an enlisted assistant to a chaplain assigned to the 1st Marines Division. He will do everything from secure areas for religious services, arrange Bible study if requested and plan movements of chaplains.
“It’s a great job because I can talk to senior guys to the 19-year-old Pfc. Timmy,” Wayne said.
Having found the right mix of sacrament and evangelism in the Charismatic Episcopal Church two years ago, he’s ready to retire next year. He plans to attend a seminary and join the ranks of the clergy, preferably getting assigned a church in a part of the country where the fishing is good.
“I had always tried to rebel against that call,” said Wayne, 43. “As I get old, I’d say God has worn me down.”
The Bluegrass Country bred and raised boy wants to return to the days of when he went fishing the rivers and lakes of his home state Kentucky for endless hours with his now late grandfather Ancil Lewis, a tobacco and beef farmer, who taught him how to use bait.
It was a thrilling time for a kid, who started fishing when he was only 5 or 6.
“You see that the work of your labor and patience was going to provide something,” he said.
When he completes his yearlong tour, Wayne hopes to be able to sit back with his wife Heather and his son Andrew, 14, and watch the water as they fish together.
It will be a freeing experience once again. Being outdoors, hearing the frogs, watching the fish jump.
Contact the writer: 949-465-5424 or vjolly@ocregister.com
