Portales now feels closer in Iraq

PORTALES — Ernie Aguilar is looking for a hometown feeling this holiday season. Some Portales residents are working to help him find it.

Sgt. Aguilar of the medical section of the 133rd Engineer Combat Battalion is in Iraq, where he provides medical care and preventative health services to Army troops.

Aguilar graduated from Portales High School in 1979 and served on the Emergency Transport System and as a firefighter for the Portales Fire Department from 1983 to 1987.

Aguilar sent an e-mail to his second cousin, Portales City Clerk Joan Martinez-Terry, in an attempt to grasp some feeling of home during his tumultuous time in Iraq. Martinez-Terry said Aguilar was born in Portales.

“I would like to fly a New Mexico state flag and a city flag, if you have one,” Aguilar wrote in the Nov. 12 e-mail. “The soldiers often seek connections with people and places back home to help offset the many miles between us and some do that by flying flags.”

Several Portales residents, in addition to State Rep. Jose Campos, D-Santa Rosa, who is trying to secure a state flag, are sending Aguilar a package that includes notes from his family, Portales pins and a Portales firefighter patch.

“The goal is to give him that hometown feeling,” Martinez-Terry said. “He has not been forgotten. I’m proud of my cousin and pray for him and his family and pray that God is watching over him.”

Portales firefighters wear the patch they will be sending, which is a patch Aguilar designed, Fire Chief Jesse Mowrer said. Mowrer said he worked with Aguilar for two years at the fire department.

“I hear from him every once in a while,” Mowrer said. “I am proud of him. I feel the troops are being taken good care of.”

Martinez-Terry said Aguilar grew up with his cousin Tonie Watson and they were raised by their grandparents, Paul and Mary Aguilar. Paul died in the late 1980s and Mary died in February.

“I often think of Portales,” Aguilar said in the e-mail, “and I miss it very much. My grandmother ... who was my main connection with Portales, has since passed. And I felt that I would no longer think of my hometown. But the hardships and stresses of war have caused me to revisit my ties to my one and only real home.”

Watson, who still lives in Portales, said even though they are cousins, she considers Aguilar more like a brother. She said they were born two months apart and were inseparable as children.

“He’s a wonderful guy,” Watson said. “He’s a really sweet and nice guy. You never see him lose his temper. He’s a very optimistic person even now in times like these.”

Martinez-Terry said Aguilar moved to Maine in 1987, where his wife and five boys still live.

Aguilar wrote in his e-mail that he wants Portales residents to know he’s doing well. He also wrote about the tough times in Iraq.

“Lately, the fighting between insurgent forces has increased. It is combat in every sense of the word. Peace for the people here is distant, but not unattainable and I am proud to be able to do my part to help them reach that peace,” he wrote.