Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Boston Globe
January 26, 2008
Pg. 1
Lawrence man awaits word on son abducted in May
By Anna Badkhen, Globe Staff
LAWRENCE - Every few weeks, US Army officers call Ramon "Andy" Jimenez to deliver the latest bit of news about his son, Alex R. Jimenez, who was kidnapped in Iraq last May: The military found Alex's Army ID. Recovered his gun. Arrested an insurgent suspected of kidnapping him.
Andy Jimenez, a carpenter who lives in a modest basement apartment in Lawrence, charts his life from one such phone call to the next. The elder Jimenez, who once went to a protest to call for the return of American troops from Iraq, attends every meeting of local veterans, puts together care packages for American troops deployed oversees, and calls soldiers from his son's 10th Mountain Division his family.
More than 250 days have passed since Specialist Jimenez, a Lawrence native, and two other American soldiers were kidnapped on a deserted highway south of Baghdad. The body of one of the soldiers was found in the Euphrates River shortly after the disappearance, and a group linked to Al Qaeda boasted that it had executed the others. But Jimenez clings steadfastly to his belief that Alex is still alive and has rearranged his life around that conviction.
Thousands of American parents have lost children to the Iraq war, but Jimenez has no body to bury, no grave at which to weep. There has been no 21-gun salute for Alex.
"When somebody dies, you know they're dead," he said. "Alex is missing in action. Nothing compares to waiting."
Jimenez, 53, starts each morning with a prayer for Alex, who stares back at him from the many photographs in his apartment. Before the ambush, Jimenez took pictures for a hobby, and he owns two professional Polaroid cameras. Now he mostly collects pictures others took: of Alex and of countless vigils held in Alex's honor. He has decorated his room with some of the pictures and keeps others in a large scrapbook, along with articles published about the missing soldier.
Jimenez has not been working as much as before Alex's capture. His grief sometimes makes it difficult for him to focus, and there have been fewer jobs for carpenters in recent months. On the days he does work, he dons a black baseball hat with POW, for prisoner of war, stitched in white above the visor, opens the apartment door adorned with a yellow ribbon, and walks past the black POW banner he tacked to the gray shingles of the house where he lives. Often, he drives across the bridge over Route 213 in Methuen where Alex's picture is afixed to a poster that supporters have hung from the railing. "Pray for our 'brave hero,' " the poster reads.
On a few occasions, when he was at work putting up drywall or installing cabinets in someone's house, news broke about his son. Arriving home unaware of the news, he saw television trucks parked outside his house, and his heart sank as he feared the worst. Jimenez's friends now call him on his cellphone while he is at work to make sure that he knows of any developments before he gets home. Whenever he flips the phone open, the first thing he sees is the picture of Alex, in uniform, on the screen.
"Nothing in my life has ever been like this," Jimenez said on a recent afternoon. "I stay strong because I think Alex is not dead. But sometimes all I can do is cry."
Jimenez treats every bit of news about his son as proof that he is alive. But often, in his agitation, he has trouble understanding what he is told. Last month, when the military called to tell him that US troops had arrested two people suspected of facilitating the capture of the soldiers, he said he could not understand the caller.
"I always hope to hear good news, and when I don't hear it right away, my English goes down 80 percent," explained Jimenez, who moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 1980.
"Often we have to totally recap the conversation," said Francisco Ureña, 27, director of veterans services in Lawrence and a Marine veteran of the war in Iraq.
"It's almost like he shuts his brain because he is just afraid of hearing something bad," said Jim Sereigo-Wareing, 49, who runs a nonprofit organization that sends care packages to the troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Andy Jimenez does not have family members in Lawrence. Alex's mother lives in New York. Wareing and Ureña have become Jimenez's closest friends in the months since Alex's capture. They are the ones by the father's side on the 12th day of each month, the day Alex was ambushed. Jimenez never works on the 12th anymore. He goes to Catholic Mass, speaks on the phone to the parents of the other soldier missing since the ambush, Private Byron W. Fouty of Michigan, and hosts vigils in Alex's honor in the front yard of his house or at a church.
On Jan. 12, Jimenez and his friends spent most of the day in Wareing's house, putting together packages of canned food, razor blades, candy, soap, cookies, and toothpaste to be shipped to troops in Iraq. Conversation was patchy, and at times the only sound was the rustle of paper and tape.
"Before [the kidnapping] I only sent packages for Alex," Jimenez said as he moved around a large pool table laden with donated food and toiletries.
Members of Alex Jimenez's Second Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division returned from Iraq in November, but other military teams in Iraq continue to search vast swaths of farmland for Alex Jimenez and Fouty.
At least two other US servicemen captured in Iraq are presumed to be alive: Specialist Ahmed K. Altaie, who disappeared in October 2006, and Staff Sergeant Keith M. Maupin, who was captured in April 2004. At least three American soldiers have been killed in captivity.
Jimenez imagines Alex "may be in a cave, or some sort of underground structure."
"That's why they hadn't found him," he explained to Ureña and Wareing over a steak one night.
One time, shortly after the ambush, Jimenez had a dream about a man being held hostage by people who had eyes in their chests.
"The captive started running, and the captors started running after him, but even though they had weapons they wanted to capture him alive." Jimenez could not make out the faces of the men in his dream. "When the captive arrived at a place where he could get help, that's when I woke up."
January 26, 2008
Pg. 1
Lawrence man awaits word on son abducted in May
By Anna Badkhen, Globe Staff
LAWRENCE - Every few weeks, US Army officers call Ramon "Andy" Jimenez to deliver the latest bit of news about his son, Alex R. Jimenez, who was kidnapped in Iraq last May: The military found Alex's Army ID. Recovered his gun. Arrested an insurgent suspected of kidnapping him.
Andy Jimenez, a carpenter who lives in a modest basement apartment in Lawrence, charts his life from one such phone call to the next. The elder Jimenez, who once went to a protest to call for the return of American troops from Iraq, attends every meeting of local veterans, puts together care packages for American troops deployed oversees, and calls soldiers from his son's 10th Mountain Division his family.
More than 250 days have passed since Specialist Jimenez, a Lawrence native, and two other American soldiers were kidnapped on a deserted highway south of Baghdad. The body of one of the soldiers was found in the Euphrates River shortly after the disappearance, and a group linked to Al Qaeda boasted that it had executed the others. But Jimenez clings steadfastly to his belief that Alex is still alive and has rearranged his life around that conviction.
Thousands of American parents have lost children to the Iraq war, but Jimenez has no body to bury, no grave at which to weep. There has been no 21-gun salute for Alex.
"When somebody dies, you know they're dead," he said. "Alex is missing in action. Nothing compares to waiting."
Jimenez, 53, starts each morning with a prayer for Alex, who stares back at him from the many photographs in his apartment. Before the ambush, Jimenez took pictures for a hobby, and he owns two professional Polaroid cameras. Now he mostly collects pictures others took: of Alex and of countless vigils held in Alex's honor. He has decorated his room with some of the pictures and keeps others in a large scrapbook, along with articles published about the missing soldier.
Jimenez has not been working as much as before Alex's capture. His grief sometimes makes it difficult for him to focus, and there have been fewer jobs for carpenters in recent months. On the days he does work, he dons a black baseball hat with POW, for prisoner of war, stitched in white above the visor, opens the apartment door adorned with a yellow ribbon, and walks past the black POW banner he tacked to the gray shingles of the house where he lives. Often, he drives across the bridge over Route 213 in Methuen where Alex's picture is afixed to a poster that supporters have hung from the railing. "Pray for our 'brave hero,' " the poster reads.
On a few occasions, when he was at work putting up drywall or installing cabinets in someone's house, news broke about his son. Arriving home unaware of the news, he saw television trucks parked outside his house, and his heart sank as he feared the worst. Jimenez's friends now call him on his cellphone while he is at work to make sure that he knows of any developments before he gets home. Whenever he flips the phone open, the first thing he sees is the picture of Alex, in uniform, on the screen.
"Nothing in my life has ever been like this," Jimenez said on a recent afternoon. "I stay strong because I think Alex is not dead. But sometimes all I can do is cry."
Jimenez treats every bit of news about his son as proof that he is alive. But often, in his agitation, he has trouble understanding what he is told. Last month, when the military called to tell him that US troops had arrested two people suspected of facilitating the capture of the soldiers, he said he could not understand the caller.
"I always hope to hear good news, and when I don't hear it right away, my English goes down 80 percent," explained Jimenez, who moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 1980.
"Often we have to totally recap the conversation," said Francisco Ureña, 27, director of veterans services in Lawrence and a Marine veteran of the war in Iraq.
"It's almost like he shuts his brain because he is just afraid of hearing something bad," said Jim Sereigo-Wareing, 49, who runs a nonprofit organization that sends care packages to the troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Andy Jimenez does not have family members in Lawrence. Alex's mother lives in New York. Wareing and Ureña have become Jimenez's closest friends in the months since Alex's capture. They are the ones by the father's side on the 12th day of each month, the day Alex was ambushed. Jimenez never works on the 12th anymore. He goes to Catholic Mass, speaks on the phone to the parents of the other soldier missing since the ambush, Private Byron W. Fouty of Michigan, and hosts vigils in Alex's honor in the front yard of his house or at a church.
On Jan. 12, Jimenez and his friends spent most of the day in Wareing's house, putting together packages of canned food, razor blades, candy, soap, cookies, and toothpaste to be shipped to troops in Iraq. Conversation was patchy, and at times the only sound was the rustle of paper and tape.
"Before [the kidnapping] I only sent packages for Alex," Jimenez said as he moved around a large pool table laden with donated food and toiletries.
Members of Alex Jimenez's Second Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division returned from Iraq in November, but other military teams in Iraq continue to search vast swaths of farmland for Alex Jimenez and Fouty.
At least two other US servicemen captured in Iraq are presumed to be alive: Specialist Ahmed K. Altaie, who disappeared in October 2006, and Staff Sergeant Keith M. Maupin, who was captured in April 2004. At least three American soldiers have been killed in captivity.
Jimenez imagines Alex "may be in a cave, or some sort of underground structure."
"That's why they hadn't found him," he explained to Ureña and Wareing over a steak one night.
One time, shortly after the ambush, Jimenez had a dream about a man being held hostage by people who had eyes in their chests.
"The captive started running, and the captors started running after him, but even though they had weapons they wanted to capture him alive." Jimenez could not make out the faces of the men in his dream. "When the captive arrived at a place where he could get help, that's when I woke up."