Damian Deluxe: the soldier-turned-rapper from Dungeness

DUNGENESS -- After 15 months in Iraq, Damian Bujanda couldn't find peace at home.

He was a U.S. Army specialist who printed maps while traveling across Iraq's scorched land.

He logged more than 30,000 miles on Iraq roads, through near-constant shelling and enemy fire.

Bujanda, now 24, received an honorable discharge after four years of service.

He said the Army asked him to re-enlist, holding out a $10,000 bonus and a guaranteed six-year posting in Hawaii.

He said no, and returned to Southern California, where he'd spent his teen years.

But he suffered from anxiety attacks, and found it difficult to move through ordinary situations.

"He was struggling; he couldn't relax," remembered his mother, Deborah Franco.

Then Bujanda's young marriage fell apart.

So he's here, spending time with his mother and pursuing his dream of making music.

In this place, Bujanda said, he's beginning to heal.

Songs and memories

He recently finished "Damian Deluxe: Fallin' Soldier," a CD with 11 tracks of hip-hop in the tradition of the late Tupac Shakur -- with an undercurrent of something else.

"Fallin" is not typical rapping. It is Bujanda's rhythmic poetry, fattened by production effects and keyboards by Jerry Dillon and Jeremy Cays, also Sequim area residents.

The record, produced in Cays' studio, is available at www.cdbaby.com/cd/damiandeluxe.

"It's about overcoming struggles, about keeping your head up high," Bujanda began.

"I want to let people know what the soldier goes through. I try to grab my listeners, put them in my shoes, and show them the battlefield."

Read the rest at the Peninsula Daily News