Sgt. Roberto Cruz, 26, is stands guard at Camp Coyote, Kuwait. He lost two close friends and fellow New York Police Department officers in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. JOHNNY EDWARDS/STAFF

Soldier wants to avenge 9-11 deaths

CAMP COYOTE, Kuwait - Roberto Cruz came to Kuwait looking for revenge.

He lost two close friends and fellow New York Police Department officers in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001. A sergeant in the Marine Reserves, he switched reserve units to get here, from a deactivated unit in Garden City, Long Island, to an activated unit in Red Bank, N.J.

"It was something personal for me," said Sgt. Cruz, 26. "Call it a vendetta, or whatever, but it's finally a chance to get some revenge in their name.

"If I do my share of the fighting, I figure I can pay them back."

As the ground war against Iraq continued Friday, Sgt. Cruz was lamenting that he probably won't get that kind of revenge - at least not in combat - for NYPD officers Ramon Suarez and Mark Ellis, both of whom were buried when the towers came down.

Instead he'll likely be standing guard at a base camp when the Marines around him move forward.

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Sgt. Cruz was trained as an infantryman, but came to Kuwait with the 6th Motors Transport Battalion. The 6th Motors falls under the 1st Force Service Support Group, which is providing supply, maintenance, engineering, medical services and transportation for ground and air assault forces of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force of more than 50,000 Marines.

"I've been in the Marine Corps nine years. They have a saying that the Marines pray for war every day," Sgt. Cruz said.

He's happy to be playing some role in the war, which he sees as directly related to Sept. 11 because it's a fight against terrorism, but would prefer to be on the front lines.

"It'll be a letdown, and it'll be a letdown for every other Marine out here who doesn't see battle," Sgt. Cruz said.

HIS ATTITUDE IS typical of the young Marines who populate Camp Guam. They view the war to depose Saddam Hussein as the next step in the fight that was brought to America's doorstep with Sept. 11. Helmets are emblazoned with slogans such as "Remember 9-11" and drawings of the New York City skyline before the attacks.

In military lingo, both this war and the war in Afghanistan are lumped under the same name: Operation Enduring Freedom.

Most Marines, whether grunts headed for the front lines or convoy drivers who expect to stay in the rear, profess a strong desire to be the first to charge into Baghdad. They also profess a strong killer instinct ingrained in them by Marine training.

But for Sgt. Cruz, the desire to fight was grounded in his own personal loss. The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Officer Cruz was in Spanish Harlem in uptown Manhattan. Part of the department's Transit District in a precinct at Union Square, he was outside a 116th Street subway station when word came over his radio that a plane had hit one of the towers. His orders were to stay put.

He arrived at ground zero at 6 p.m. and worked late into the night on "bucket brigade," filling up buckets with whatever rubble he could pick up. He came back to work on Sept. 12 at 4 a.m.

Before Sept. 11, Sgt. Cruz said he and Officers Suarez and Ellis had all been studying for their tests to make sergeant together.

During the two weeks before the precinct gave up on finding them in the wreckage, Sgt. Cruz recalls officers writing messages on Officer Suarez' locker, next to his, that said, "Stay strong, Ray," and "We're gonna find you."

"We were just trying to get them," Sgt. Cruz said. "We were just trying some way to get them back."

DURING THE WAR in Afghanistan, Sgt. Cruz's Marine Reserve unit, the 2nd Battalion, 25th Marines, was activated and sent to Camp Lejeune, N.C., but never deployed.

Disappointed, and fearing the war with Iraq would be the last significant conflict before he retires, he switched to the nearby 6th Motors when he heard it had been activated, leaving his 3-year-old daughter, Delidy, behind with her mother.

Because he's trained for infantry, he was given the security job with the Force Protection Platoon, Sgt. Cruz said.

He's now in charge of a security shift at Camps Guam and Saipan, parts of Camp Coyote in northern Kuwait.

Even when the support forces move forward, he expects to be left behind to guard their camps when the trucks and convoys head closer to the front lines.

It's something he thinks he'll be able to live with, though. At least he's doing something in the fight against Saddam, he said.

"If I would have stayed home and have done nothing about it, I would have had to live with it for the rest of my life."

--From the Saturday, March 22, 2003 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle