“I’m one of the lucky ones, you know. A lot of the veterans I’ve met are homeless and cannot get over the things that happened to them when they served. I was able to overcome my troubles and was able to deal with it. I’m one of the lucky ones…”

The warm sun drenched the room that winter morning. Twenty-two year old Marco Torres rolled out of bed, waking up to the smell of booze on his clothing, his bed, his own breath. December 26, 1990. Christmas was over. Empty bottles littered the floor of his house in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. The prospect of facing another day filled Marco with dread. No matter how hard he tried to shake it, this feeling would not go away. The medication that he took to kill his depression was useless when mixed with alcohol.

Marco began thinking of his friends from high school. They all had made something of their lives. . . jobs, wives, children, success. He had nothing. He had a roof over his head and enough possessions to get by, but all of that was empty. Material possessions had no weight in the grand scheme of things. In the midst of the vacuum around him, Marco began searching for answers. How did this happen?

He still had memories and mental photographs etched into his mind––pictures of Honduras, where the jungles were thick, full of acres and acres of barbed wire glimmering in the sun and the occasional landmine. He spent weeks at a time installing wire systems for the Army. Before he was injured and diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome, he used to lurk in those jungles at night, for the sole purpose of using the phone. He would patch the line, get in touch with an operator, and then from there, call his mother collect to Lowell. In the 1980s being an American soldier in Honduras was a consumerist’s dream––cheap food, cheap cigarettes, cheap booze, cheap everything. During occasional breaks, he took advantage of this and partied hard.

Marco, with short spiky hair, and a cigarette in his hand, explains, “I am very proud of being an American and of serving my country. I come from a long line of soldiers. My father fought in the Korean Conflict, and we have over sixty years of military service in my family––it’s a family tradition. I could have been stationed in Alaska, but I chose Honduras. Who knows what would have been if I had chosen Alaska?” But beyond all of the if’s, there was the reality of the situation. The United States Army was determined to spread Democracy and aid the Contra rebels of Nicaragua, and Marco had made his choice.

Four years had passed since he returned to Puerto Rico from his three months in Honduras. Now he was stuck facing an enemy much harder to deal with than perils overseas. “Where it came from I couldn’t tell you. There are many possibilities. While I was in Honduras, I experienced many injuries, mostly from falling off telephone poles while I was installing wires. I had lesions in my back and injuries to my head. One morning I woke up, and I was hearing voices and sounds like a knock on a door in my head.”

Back in Puerto Rico he was still battling himself. He had pieces of a puzzle to put together and made the decision to take responsibility for his life again. In the wake of that long, empty Christmas night, Marco finally came to a decision. He picked up the phone and made a call to Lowell, much like he used to do in Honduras.

After calling his mother, Marco phoned all of his close friends. He told them that he was moving in with his mother in Lowell, Massachusetts and asked if he could borrow money for the plane ticket. Marco’s luggage was light. In one hand was a guitar with no strings and in the other a bag of dirty laundry. Everything else was to be left behind in Puerto Rico. Marco, with a thoughtful grin on his face, comments, “I spent my whole life messing up, and it only took a few weeks to go through with a decision that would help me put my life back together. It’s funny how these things work.”

This was not the first time Marco had moved to the States. “When I was in High School, I was taking an English class and my teacher had read a poem in front of the class. It was ‘Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening’ by Robert Frost. That poem has so much in it. When you read it, there is everything. You can see the woods, you can feel the cold, and you can smell the snow.” After reading the poem, he developed an affinity for the English language. When he was fifteen, he and his mother moved to New Jersey so that he could learn how to speak the language better. There he saw for the first time the snow and ice to which Frost referred in his poem. He fell in love with the winter and with the U.S. A year later they moved back for another six months, before returning to Puerto Rico where he finished high school. Being in the army for two years allowed him to live in thirteen states, but his stay was never more than two months long. This time, he planned to settle in the US for good.

Marco, sitting in his dining room with his laptop on the table in front of him, is wearing a sweater vest over a button down shirt. His wife pours him a cup of coffee. “After I moved, my life changed. I was not going to go out until I could truly say that my life was improved. For five years I didn’t go to parties. I never drank. I stopped smoking. I never even went to the movies.”

Meanwhile, he was working as a laborer, moving from job to job, doing janitorial work, or whatever else was needed. He had a home and he was going to school. Marco’s disability caused by post-traumatic depression was diagnosed as permanent, entitling him to more benefits from the Army. He attended the Pentecostal church regularly. “The church gave me a positive social network where I met people who really cared and wanted the best for me. Being part of a network is the most valuable thing that you can do with your life.” At the church Marco met a woman whom he fell in love with. Danneza was to become his wife and the mother of his two children, Marco Jr. and Diego.

Marco can now say that he has achieved his goal and truly improved his life. He attended UMass Lowell and successfully met the challenges posed by a learning disability, eventually graduating Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice and a minor in legal studies. Even while attending school full time, Marco continued in his dedication to serving others, volunteering for the community in a number of ways. As a member of the UMass Lowell student group, ALANA, Marco traveled to a Baptist church in Lawrence, MA, twice a week to help Latino children with their homework after school. He has also counseled local eighth graders, through UMass Lowell’s Ambassador’s Program, encouraging students to stay in school. He has tutored immigrants in Lawrence, helping them to learn English, and after graduation he served for two years as Secretary of the Board of a charter school in Lowell.

Most recently, he has returned to school at the Massachusetts School of Law in Andover. He is working to become an attorney, specializing in representing Latino immigrants. “I would love to go back to Puerto Rico and work as a lawyer there, but in Puerto Rico bilingual lawyers are a dime a dozen. Here speaking English and Spanish gives you an edge.”

Marco’s life is an excellent example demonstrating that students with learning disabilities and U.S. Veterans with disabilities can surmount the obstacles they face and can indeed achieve a healthy and productive life and contribute to society.