"And that's when my consciousness was born"

In the early part of 1999 Guatemala was hit with both a hurricane and an earthquake. The United States government agreed to activate troops to be sent to Guatemala and several of its neighbors. My unit, being Military Police, was sent to provide force protection for all American service members working in and around Guatemala. I will provide some information on Guatemala and then provide a detailed account of my mission, Task Force Montagua: New Horizons II.

The country of Guatemala is mostly mountains with narrow coastal plains and rolling limestone plateau's (AOL. online). The climate is tropical; hot, humid in lowlands; cooler in the highlands (AOL. online). During my trip the temperatures ranged from ninety to one hundred fourteen degrees in Puerto Barrios. Guatemala's land is mostly forests and woodland, 54% (AOL. online). The rest of the country's land is used for the production of coffee, sugar, and bananas which are Guatemala's key exports.

The people of Guatemala are a very diverse group. There are three different re

My trip to Guatemala was a very touching experience. Seeing poverty that was worse than I had ever seen before was upsetting. The Guatemalan people treated us with great respect. The people of Guatemala are a very noble group. American's worry about material things all the time and all these people want is to be able to eat and celebrate their culture. Our mission of force protection was a success as far as the leadership is concerned. I think it is a failure though, we left four American GI's behind because some corporation paid some congressman so they could get outstanding virtually free labor. I would love to see congress explain this to the family's of the lost soldiers.

ligions practiced in Guatemala, Roman Catholic, Protestant, and traditional Mayan. Burgos-Debray states that there are twenty-two indigenous ethnic groups in Guatemala, twenty-three including the Mestizos, or Ladinos (pg1). The indigenous people of Guatemala are the of the Mayan Indian descent. The Ladinos are Spanish speaking and of Spanish descent from the days when this area was controlled by Spain. Ladinos make up approximately 56% of the population and the Indian peoples make up approximately 44% of the population(AOL. online). Also there are many different languages spoke in Guatemala. Most of the population (60%) speaks Spanish but the rest of the population speaks one of twenty-three different Mayan dialects.

Guatemala is a very young democracy. In 1996, the voters of Guatemala elected Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen president (World Book. 1998). Before this election Guatemala had been involved in thirty-six years of bloody and ultra-violent civil war. To put the war in simple terms the indigeous Mayan people of Guatemala were fighting for the right to control their land in order to have enough food to feed their children. Before the civil war started close to one out of three Indian children died of starvation. The current death rate is at approximately 6.96 deaths/1,000 population every year (AOL. online). The civil war saw many Indian peoples tortured, raped and murdered. The leader of the Indian freedom fighters was Rigoberta Menchu', who in 1992 won the Nobel peace prize (World Book. 1998).

During our work at the bridge site no combat took place(the bridge is marked on the map) but a few rounds were discharged though. Guatemalan soldiers fired several times on suspected Honduran radicals. No American lives were lost at our work site but we did have a couple of scary moments. There is an unimproved road that leads off the main hardbal

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Approximate Word count = 1723
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)