By ALEX COSTELLO
"I wanted to do something different," the now-19-year-old said. "I was afraid of getting stuck in a dead-end job somewhere." That's something that a lot of people graduating high school say, and many of them don't do anything to change that possible outcome. Pacheco, however, did - he joined the Army.
Before enlisting, Pacheco, of East Rockaway, did construction work with his father - but he wanted to do something more interesting. "I didn't want to do the same thing every day," he said. He had known for years, he said, that he wanted to join the military.
"He told me he wanted to enlist when he was about 15 years old," said Soraya Cerceau, Pacheco's mother. She said that he stopped mentioning it after a while, and she thought he had changed his mind. "One day, he came home and said, 'Mom, I already signed up.' I tried to get his father and his teachers and all his friends to say 'don't go,'" she said.
So, against the wishes of his mother, Pacheco enlisted in the Army, and on July 23, 2006, he shipped out to Fort Benning in Georgia for basic training. After nine weeks, he was sent to Fort Huachuca, in Arizona, where, according to Pacheco, "they train you for your actual job."
"[When] he told me he was going to Afghanistan, I was horrified," said Cerceau. "He said 'Mom, it's my job. I have to go.'" Pacheco left for Afghanistan on Nov. 10, 2007. "It wasn't easy because every day you watch TV and you see the soldiers dying," Cerceau said. "He's only 19."
Pacheco was assigned as a unit intelligence collector. While in Afghanistan, he said, he was running interrogations and cooperating with commanders to eliminate threats. "I was doing my part to further the war effort," he said.
After nearly eight months in Afghanistan, Pacheco was granted 30 days of leave and came home to his mother and his sister, Alli. "When we were getting on the plane, we were saying things like, 'I wish [our service] could be extended,' and, 'There's still work to be done,'" he said. "Then, when we were in the air, we were like, 'Holy crap, we're going home, man!'"
Pacheco returned home on June 2 into the open arms of his family, especially his mother. "It's a dream come true," she said. "He's home, he's safe, no injuries. It's wonderful."
Right now, Pacheco and his wife, Rachel, are traveling the country visiting family. They have already been to other towns in New York, as well as Rhode Island, Florida, and California. All too soon, though, Pacheco will be reporting back to Fort Gordon. He'll be doing work on the base and preparing for his next deployment which, he said, may be in January.
When he does go back, though, Pacheco has at least one thing to look forward to. "The food is amazing in Afghanistan," he said. "I ate the local food and it was delicious."
As for Pacheco's mother, she could not be more proud of her son, even if she does worry about him when he's away. "When you say, 'He's a veteran of war,' you think of older people," she said, "not someone who's 19."
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Photos courtesy Soraya Cerceau
