Hector Leija remembered

RAYMONDVILLE — Like many people before him who grew up in an area where good jobs are hard to come by, Staff. Sgt. Hector Leija joined the Army right out of high school.

But Leija, 27, was different. He had options, which makes his recent death in Iraq harder to bear for those who knew him here as a standout Bearkat at Raymondville High School, or for his parents who raised him on farm worker wages in a humble home that borders grain and sugarcane fields that define this region of the Rio Grande Valley.

In school, where flags flew at half-staff Thursday, he had been a member of the National Honor Society, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Bible Club, FFA, Science Club and an athletic academic team. He played football and was honored as the citizen of the month, according to the Class of 1997 yearbook.

"He got accepted to Baylor, he got accepted to everywhere, but he chose Army," said Leija's brother Robert, 24, standing on the family's front porch.

The family said they were told Wednesday night of Leija's death, but it wasn't immediately clear how he was killed.

It was his third tour in Iraq, and he planned to retire from the military, a job he took very seriously, friends and family said. He'd been stationed at various places, including Germany for four years and at Fort Lewis, Wash.

Leija was the second soldier from this town of 9,483 people to die in Iraq. He was the 49th from Willacy County to die in a foreign war since World War I.

"It's hard because it's such a small community," Eddie Chapa, veterans' service officer of the county, said of the most recent death. "When the news hit last night, most of the community didn't sleep."

There was initial confusion from incorrect television reports that the death was a different Hector Leija — a Marine from here who previously served in Iraq.

Richard Garcia, a high school industrial arts teacher and FFA adviser, who was close to Leija, recalled his former student as humble and respectful and someone who had a crush on his daughter when he was young.

"The kid never had been in trouble," Garcia said from the school shop, where his current students sanded wood and welded metal.

Asked if any of them planned on joining the military, one student said he wasn't but his "homeboy" was.

Garcia, the type of teacher whose sense of humor and leadership appear to draw students to him, including friendly headlocks, quickly briefed him on his word choice: "Hey, you are stereotyping yourself."

A former Marine, Garcia said many of his students go into the military. When they come back and visit, they strut the halls in full uniform, their chests puffed up.

"It sends chills when you see somebody like that," he said, proud.

But he was torn about seeing service members like Leija go to Iraq.

"Sure you have a duty to our country, but who are we fighting?" he said. "You are proud for them, but you start thinking, 'What are we doing over there?'"

Leija was last home in the fall, before his third trip to war.

"He said someone has to protect the innocent people over there," his brother Robert said. "He always put people before him."

From the Express News

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