CYA Lost an Inmate and Army Gained a Soldier

No matter what the stereotype is, most kids in Southern California don’t grow up with swimming pools, convertibles or TV shows of their own. A lot of them just scrape by, or they get into scrapes, or they hang around, aimlessly, searching for something to do until something better comes along.

Ramon Rodriguez, as a boy, did what seemed natural to him at the time.

He was born in Long Beach and grew up a longshoreman’s son in Wilmington, hard by the harbor. His father raised Ramon practically by himself.

By the time he reached the 11th grade at Banning High and was about to turn 17, though, Rodriguez had lost his way a little. He had gotten involved with a neighborhood gang. And he had a Juvenile Court date waiting for him.

“You just get sucked in,” Rodriguez remembers. “Everyone you know who’s in a gang is pressuring you to come along, and one day you just do. You aren’t thinking clearly. You just want to be with your friends.”

Until one day you find yourself standing before a judge, who is telling you that it’s time to make yourself some new friends.

*

Rodriguez was given a choice. He could go directly to a California Youth Authority camp as punishment for his gang activity. Or he could march straight into military service and attempt to make something worthwhile of his life.

Which was why, in 1960, on his 17th birthday, Rodriguez found himself enlisting in the U.S. Army.

He says he was looking forward to becoming a soldier, that he wasn’t dreading it. But even so, when you’re 17, you are never entirely sure what it is you want or what it is you’re about to get.

Take a few days into his hitch, after Rodriguez reported to Ft. Ord for basic training. Everything was so new for a green recruit that even his fatigues still smelled of mothballs. It was 4 in the morning when Rodriguez heard a superior call out, “I need volunteers.”

The first unwritten rule of military training is never volunteer for anything. But word hadn’t reached young Rodriguez yet. Volunteers were needed for police work, so Ramon raised his hand. He’d had run-ins with the police and liked the idea of being on the other side for a change.

What he didn’t understand was a word that has a different connotation in the service, where to “police” a given area is to pick up the trash.

That was the beginning of Rodriguez’s military education.

He was next assigned to Ft. Campbell, Ky., where he volunteered for jump school. Having been inside an airplane only once before, he found himself parachuting out of one.

Over the next few years, Rodriguez was promoted to sergeant and appreciated the Army sufficiently to reenlist. He volunteered for duty in Vietnam and served 32 months there with the 101st Airborne Division and with Special Forces.

One day in 1968, while acting as a platoon sergeant for an infantry battalion, Rodriguez’s platoon was ambushed near Phu Bai. The platoon leader and point man were seriously wounded and the unit was pinned down.

Rodriguez assumed command. He maneuvered the platoon to where it could place a base of return fire at the enemy. Then, wounded himself and under heavy fire, he personally pulled the platoon leader to safety. And he repeated this action until several other wounded soldiers were rescued.

By the time he retired in 1983 as a sergeant major, Rodriguez had received three Silver Star decorations, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

A vice president today for a security services firm in Hawthorne, Rodriguez is 56 and lives in Carson. So much has transpired since his 17th birthday that he will be an honored guest at the Army’s 225th birthday celebration next week, beginning with a cake-cutting ceremony Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. at the military processing station, 5051 Rodeo Road, Los Angeles.

*

Leaving the service proved to be more traumatic than joining it for Rodriguez, who after a 23-year career of considerable action and authority had to adapt to becoming a civilian and a single father.

“Kids, especially between the ages of 17 and 21, they’re like pinball machines,” he says. “Many of them have no direction, no focus. Something like the Army--it can give you a mission in life.”

Rodriguez has a son, Brandon, who has been a college student in Berkeley. Until two weeks ago, when he enlisted in the U.S. Army.

Some sons had to join. This one wanted to.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com