1MAKING THE JOURNEY TO THE BORDER PATROL
My father, Carlos Vargas, was a former Marine. He came from nothing, living in the Bronx, and then moved to Echo Park in Los Angeles when he was fourteen. My father made some of what he would call “knucklehead choices” that ultimately resulted in him joining the military. He turned his life around, from a street kid to a Jarhead, eventually translating what he learned in the service into a career in the Los Angeles Fire Department. His work ethic and fierce love for his family intimidated me but also inspired me. I had much to live up to, and failure was never an option.
I was raised playing sports in an effort to keep me off the streets and from potentially falling into gangs. I had fallen in love with baseball and had hopes to someday become a professional baseball player. I graduated high school and had played on a few junior college teams, and eventually transferred to a university. At this point in my life, I had to make a choice to put baseball behind me. I made some decisions that, in hindsight, weren’t really conducive to my goal of becoming a professional baseball player. I lost a full-ride athletic scholarship to Brescia University by becoming academically ineligible, and in addition, around that time I found out I was expecting a little girl. It was time to hang up my spikes and find a way to support my daughter Isabella. Her future was my new mission.
My brother JR was the one who really planted the seed to join the military. He told me: “Your life is all over the place; maybe joining the military is a good option for you. It worked for Dad.” At first, his words offended me. I had plans and dreams, and I didn’t feel like I was all over the place; I was just finding my path. But I soon realized the wisdom in his words, that the service really was the best option. I had to provide for Belle’s needs and make sure she had benefits like insurance.
If I was going to join the Army, I knew I wanted to be in Special Operations based on what the recruiters told me, but also because I had seen Black Hawk Down. Watching that movie was the first time in my young adult life that I considered joining the military. I wondered if I had the courage to take the fight to the enemy like the brave soldiers in the film.
I have always been an athlete. I never had any trouble doing anything physically demanding. I was confident—I felt like there was nothing that could be too difficult for me or that I could not accomplish. I have always challenged myself in every aspect of life: to be a good man, to be a great dad, and to excel in sports. Now I was going to be transitioning into a career field that was my only option and I had to find a way to make it work. For myself, for my daughter, and for my future.
I finally decided that I wanted to be an Army Ranger. I studied the reputation of the Rangers throughout history—which went back as far as the history of this country. I wanted to be part of that lineage. People told me that Ranger training was one of the hardest things the Army had to offer. I signed up at the MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) in Louisville, Kentucky, in April 2003. My date to ship out was October 16, 2003. I was classified RGR 11X (Ranger Contract with Infantry Identifier). This is the job designated by the alphanumeric system. An infantryman was an 11 series. The X was an open contract depending on the outcome of the soldier’s path. The RGR referred to Ranger Regiment. This means Airborne School would be attached as long as I continued along the pipeline after basic training. If at any point someone would have failed any part of the training, the alphanumeric code would change to identify what their job would eventually become.
Basic training was an interesting journey that was just a look under the hood of what the military had to offer me. Next was Airborne School, a three-week course that teaches soldiers the techniques involved in parachuting from airplanes and landing safely for combat operations.
After graduating from Airborne School, I was “politely” introduced to what was to come during the RIP (Ranger Indoctrination Program) on a one-mile march carrying most of my gear and being bludgeoned by verbal uppercuts that made me question my choice to even join the Ranger Battalion. If this was just a taste of what’s to come, I was becoming increasingly nervous.
* * *
Once I graduated from RIP and headed to the Ranger Battalion, I was ready to hop onto my first deployment.
Once arriving to my unit, I had learned so much about myself already. I was a twenty-three-year-old Private First Class and I was becoming a well-rounded professional soldier—more than just a baseball player. Within forty-five days of joining Ranger Battalion, I was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. While in Afghanistan, if I wasn’t on a mission, eating chow, or in the gym, I had nothing to do but think. I knew going in that being an Army Ranger wasn’t my lifelong career choice, and I was already thinking about what I would be doing once I mustered out of the Army. I had started taking EMT classes before joining the military, so following my father’s footsteps into the fire department was a constant thought as far as a career choice.
One day, while sitting in a squad room in Afghanistan, a few of us started talking about what we wanted to do after we got out of the Army. I mentioned the fire department. Everyone had their normal cop or firefighter career aspirations, and no one said anything out of the ordinary until Staff Sergeant Ricardo Barraza spoke up and simply said: “Border Patrol.” He told us they had special operations units and also a huge budget for training. “It’s the closest thing to being an Army Ranger, but doing it in the civilian world,” he said with a flourish.
Before this conversation with Staff Sergeant Barraza, I had never given a thought to what that career field looked like. All I remembered were those ugly mint-green Border Patrol trucks in the movie Born in East L.A., which were just like the ones I saw as we crossed the border to vacation in Rosarito, Mexico.
I started asking more questions. What interested me most was that Staff Sergeant Barraza was Mexican. I am half Mexican on my mother’s side and half Puerto Rican on my father’s. I knew my mother’s story and how my grandmother came across the border, but none of that registered the significance of the Border Patrol. I was ignorant regarding why any Hispanic person would ever want to protect the border from other Mexicans coming across. My initial thoughts were muddled. I wasn’t considering that I was an American and currently serving our country overseas.
Barraza was explaining to me how the Special Operations teams worked and the fact they have a large budget for training, just like the Ranger Battalion. It was all sounding more attractive with every explanation he spilled. He went on to tell me that he would be applying as soon as he got out.
* * *
As my military career continued, I began teetering on whether or not I would get out or stay in. The military has a funny effect on you. You can hate most things about it, but you grow accustomed to the stability and relative comfort that it provides. Getting out was still an idea but staying in for another four years had its perks.
On December 16, 2004, I lost a close friend whom I had spent a significant amount of time with in the pipeline on the way to Ranger Battalion. Devin Peguero died while participating in a live-fire exercise. It was my first experience of losing a friend in the military. I had lost a few friends to gang violence growing up in LA, but for some reason this one hit differently. As a result, I started leaning into getting out of the military and finding a new career.
In April 2005, after returning from a deployment in Iraq, I was preparing to be sent to Ranger School. The day before I left, we had a platoon football game: Barraza’s team versus mine. Because of my competitive nature, I wanted to win so damn bad. But Barraza’s competitive nature matched mine, and his team won. As I was walking off, pissed, he stopped me. “Come here,” he said in his deep cocky tone. I hesitated in my frustration. “Vargas, come here,” he repeated.
“What’s up, Sergeant?”
He snagged a Ranger Tab off his cover, handed it to me (Rangers wear a Ranger Tab on their covers just above their rank identifier), and said: “Come back with your shit [Ranger Tab], or don’t come back at all.”
We hugged, and I walked off, still fuming, but also shocked by the gesture. He cut his own tab off his cover and gave it to me. This wasn’t something I had ever seen anyone do. It was powerful. I didn’t want to let this man down, just like I had never wanted to let my father down.
That was the last conversation I had with Staff Sergeant Ricardo Barraza. I will always regret walking away upset over a football game. I wish I had told him how much he meant to me and how much he had taught me, not only in the regiment but also in the life lessons I will take with me forever.
I was off to conquer Ranger School, and my unit was off to Iraq. If I went straight through and finished schooling, I would be able to meet them there after my graduation. I was motivated by that, and also by the fact that my projected graduation date was December 16, 2005, exactly one year to the day of Devin Peguero’s death. I was motivated to get back to my platoon and to honor my friend, whose dream had been to earn his Ranger Tab.
I graduated from Ranger School right on time on December 16, and I was the Distinguished Honor Graduate. The downside was that I had severed a nerve in my shoulder during Ranger training. So, while I had hoped to rejoin my platoon overseas, the battalion physician’s assistant denied my request.
Staff Sergeant Barraza was killed in Iraq from wounds he sustained on a mission. He and Sergeant Dale Brehm died while clearing a building in Ramadi, Iraq, when they came under enemy fire. We lost two of the most influential and well-respected individuals in our battalion, and I was angry about it.
Staff Sergeant Barraza’s death hit me hard. Perhaps more so because I wasn’t there, in-country, with him when it happened. I believed he was a better man than me. I would have gladly traded places with him. Would he have died if I had been there? Like most military men and women, I had survivor’s guilt. If those bullets had hit me instead, maybe Staff Sergeant Barraza would still be alive.
When his body was flown home, I was one of the soldiers detailed to work his funeral. That was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, but it was an honor I treasure to this day. Men like Barraza were heroes, and the fact that they were killed solidified my decision to leave the Army. I completed my last deployment to Afghanistan in 2007, and soon after that I started out-processing from active duty.
I assume that most people who decide to leave the military have some of the same motivations. You want to pursue a career where you can leverage as many of the skills you learned in the service as you can. You want to be able to provide for your family. You want to find a vocation that makes you want to get up in the morning and go to work. You want to have a job with the stability that going on multiple military deployments can’t possibly give you. And for most of us—regardless of how long we serve—we are more mature and motivated at the end of our military tour of duty, and quite frankly, more confident that we are making an informed decision as to our next career choice.
I had two options in my head: firefighting or the Border Patrol. Both careers had at least a two-year path of applications, testing, and training. For peace of mind, just in case either of these options didn’t work out, I applied for close to thirty jobs in the Phoenix, Arizona, area once I got out of the Army. I know it sounds odd—especially to anyone who has experienced a super-organized career track—but I didn’t care that much what the job was going to be. I just wanted to feel the comfort of knowing I had a job lined up, and most importantly that I would be able to provide for my family. My father owned a rental property in Florence, Arizona, and he allowed me to live there once I got out of the military.
I applied for several fire department positions, and at one point, I was the number-one-ranked candidate for the Tucson Fire Department. The Tucson Fire Department was planning on hiring the top twenty candidates, and I was feeling good about becoming a firefighter and following the family tradition. But fate intervened, and the Tucson Fire Department went on a one-year hiring freeze, a soul-crushing turn of events. The pressure of wanting a career, not just for myself but for my family as well, weighed on me.
I was trying to build my résumé by working at a volunteer fire department in the hopes of making it harder for other fire department gatekeepers to ignore me. I decided to try to join a small, private department in Coolidge, Arizona. They had a reputation for being cowboys in the fire community. They were all young and wild dudes.
Soon after joining, I was called to fight a fire that occurred on the tour bus of a musician called Kenna. I was lead on the hose, but as I was fighting the fire, I couldn’t help but feel disappointment. I had spent the last four years of my life doing some of the craziest stuff imaginable. Trying to fill that void by fighting fires wasn’t working for me. It was time to focus on something else, so I shifted my focus to becoming a Border Patrol agent, for my kids, for myself, and for Staff Sergeant Barraza’s memory. But this book is more than just my memoir of my time as a Border Patrol agent, it is a look behind the curtain at what the Border Patrol is and what it does to protect our nation every day.
* * *
If you are reading this book, it is because you have found yourself genuinely interested in our nation’s immigration crisis and the current chaos along our southern border. It means that you, like millions of other Americans, have decided that your curiosity is no longer satisfied by bite-sized pieces of poorly sourced information, reported in scripted, biased, politically correct format from a glossy studio in New York City. You are no longer satisfied by so-called “experts” who have never interdicted an ounce of narcotics, never had an angry rock thrown in their direction, and never set foot along our southern border.
You are here because you have found yourself asking questions and been unable to find satisfactory answers. This book will provide the unvarnished truth about the reality of daily life along the U.S.-Mexico border from the perspective of a Border Patrol agent. The accounts and information are not only factually accurate but are validated and galvanized through lived experience.
The very concept of a “nation” is based not only on ideals, morals, and principles but on borders as well. Borders and boundaries are what establish the freedom and independence of one nation from another, and those borders must be defended.
This is the mission and ethos of the U.S. Border Patrol and the thousands of men and women who serve in its ranks. It is no different than the individual right to privacy and security. It is not only why we lock our doors but why we have doors in the first place.
The Border Patrol has been misunderstood, vilified, criticized, and politicized by both supporters and detractors. It has been compared to organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and even the Waffen-SS. Comparisons such as these are not only grossly offensive and intellectually dishonest but also highly inaccurate.
Despite this kind of ongoing criticism, the men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol continue to do their job with honor and integrity. They do their work mostly unseen by the American public in inhospitable and austere environments, in places like Ajo, Arizona; Eagle Pass, Texas; and Calexico, California. They continue to serve with dedication and to risk their lives every day against drug cartels, traffickers, smugglers, and a myriad of other dangers not likely experienced even by most law enforcement officers, let alone civilians.
It is important to understand the U.S. Border Patrol as it exists. It does not create immigration laws, nor does it decide immigration policies. The Border Patrol is simply the mechanism that enforces the immigration policy of each administration, and it is guided by federal law and the U.S. Constitution.
By way of analogy, bartenders do not decide the legal drinking age, and state troopers do not set the speed limit on our highways. Border Patrol agents only enforce the policies that are put into place by our nation’s government. Agents are charged with defending and asserting the most fundamental right of any nation on earth: the right to defend its borders.
As you read this book, the men and women of the Border Patrol will continue to guard our borders and protect you and your loved ones without political influence, ideological contamination, or personal bias. They will enforce the laws of this nation as directed by the citizens of this country and through their elected representatives and the president.
* * *
Once I decided to begin the journey to become a Border Patrol agent, it was game on. Applying for the Border Patrol wasn’t the biggest challenge—the rules and procedures were all pretty straightforward. That said, setting up the USAJobs.gov profile took me weeks. I didn’t want to omit a single detail that was required to complete the application on the website.
Once you complete the application portion, you receive an email with possible test locations and dates. I was surprised by the fast turnaround. I applied for the Border Patrol and received a test date within thirty days. That was the good news. The bad news was that I feared this test more than any other part of the application process.
The written portion of the Border Patrol test was a gauntlet, and that was followed by even more hurdles: an oral exam, a physical exam, a background check, and a lie-detector test. Ultimately I passed everything with flying colors, but the process took forever. Finally, after two years—which I later learned was a completely normal length of time for Border Patrol admission—I was going to be hired and sent to the Academy.
But while I was celebrating my good fortune, I understood that even if I passed all these obstacles, someone—some unseen entity I had never met—would make the decision as to whether or not I would ultimately be asked to join the Border Patrol and attend the Academy. I waited and waited, but as the old saying goes, I was as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
Finally, the call came. I remember it like it was yesterday. The voice at the other end of the phone said: “Mr. Vargas, congratulations, we have accepted your application, and we would like to offer you a position with the Border Patrol. Duty station will be Eagle Pass, Texas. You are scheduled to begin your training at the Border Patrol Academy on June 4; congratulations again.”
I was super stoked, and I heard my dad’s voice playing in my head: “Vinny, you can’t go wrong working for the government.” I didn’t hesitate. I said yes and thank you. But as soon as the voice on the other end clicked off, I panicked. My wife at the time was due to deliver my son Holden just days after I was to report to the Border Patrol Academy. The family came first. Do I call them back and ask for a different class date?
I was so conflicted. Here I was being invited to start the job of a lifetime, but it would mean missing one of the most important events in my life—the birth of my son. I was beating myself up, thinking that I should have spoken up before saying yes. But at the end of the day, I was committed. I was going to show up at the Border Patrol Academy and start my new career—but this was a decision I have continued to question.
I don’t think I’m a worrier, but I’m a guy who likes to plan ahead and run through what might happen. This was no different. I knew one day I would have to explain to my son why I missed his birth, and hopefully he would understand that I had landed the job of a lifetime and would provide him more opportunity than I could have ever imagined. Once I had reconciled that I would be beginning my training while my son was being born, I prepared to head off to the Border Patrol Academy.
Copyright © 2023 by Vincent Vargas Inc
