My Team

Look at Villanova trying to coax this Iguana into his hat. Villanova was the "instigator" of our group, always flirting with trouble and causing hate and discontent everywhere he went. But he was great fun to hang out with, and a natural athlete. He was a very good friend of mine. I thought about inviting him to my wedding, but reconsidered since he'd probably start a fight in the middle of the ceremony.

Swain was and still is a very good friend of mine. He got assigned to our team as the Hummer driver and was the toughest bastard I'd ever met. We got medevac'ed from Gitmo to beautiful Portsmouth Naval Hospital together where we started a new adventure. Swain was able to make it to my wedding, which was awesome, I don't think I could have pulled it off without him. Semper Fi, Swain!

BC was everybody's friend and an awesome guy. He was from Mexico and had the misfortune to have the name "BarbosaCastro" while serving in Cuba, if you can imagine. He really made me laugh one day when he told me of how he joined the Marines. He said that he went to the Navy place first, but they had gone to lunch and left a sign on their door. He looked over and saw the Marine recruiters and thought, "They've got nice uniforms", and signed up. When he went to boot camp, he said he was expecting to camp a little and probably shoot some guns, but when he stepped off the bus, "Everyone was yelling at me!" He was great at night patrolling and great fun on libo.

Pascerella had the best impersonation of Halvas that ever was. He loved Jimmy Buffet, and George Thoroughgood and kept our team a little sane for the most part. He really suprised me when I heard about a year after I left Gitmo that he had allready made Sergeant while the rest of us were still nasty Lance Corporals! Go Pascey! I predict he re-enlisted and is well on his way to Staff Sergeant, but I could be wrong, he might be sitting back in Upper Marlborough today enjoying himself.

I wasn't sure whether to put this picture over on the Fenceline side, but I thought it'd be a good place to tell about Southern and Halvas. Southern was one of my roomates (along with Luck) and was a real cool Marine. Halvas was a guy who came to us from F.A.S.T. (Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team) Company. He's got on "Seven Bravos" in this picture, the NVGs (Night Vision Goggles) we used when we patrolled at night. These things are incredible, it could be pitch black outside, put these on, and you can see clearly.

It's important to note that these weren't all of the people in our team, as people rotated in and out a lot, and I don't have pictures of some of them. Most noticably missing is David Luck. I've got pictures of Luck, but none that are too flattering except this one of him at one of the Cuban refugee riots (look for this page coming soon). Luck (a.k.a. "B-A-D") was another great guy and good friend of mine. He could have a foul disposition at times and could really anger our Sergeants and Platoon Sergants by getting drunk and telling them how stupid they were (which I thought was hilarious). There's not enough time or space to talk about this fine Marine, but thanks Luck, for everything.

Something else that's worth mentioning about our team, and that is we did everything together. That's something I don't think you can really find anywhere else (or would probably want to!). We patrolled together, stood post together, went drinking together, got in fights together, were bored together, went to the NEX together, thrashed together... I think we got sick of each other quite a few times from having the same routine and I guess experiencing a bit of "cabin fever" of sorts. But now, I'd bet if you asked the old members of Rifle Security Team/Winward, 1st Platoon, '60 Section, they'd say they miss Gitmo and RSC and the friendships they made while they were there. I know I do.