Q: What is your full name?
A: My name is Alex Ignacio Macias.
Q: When and where were you born?
A: I was born in Houston, Texas. March 17, 1975.
Q: What is your occupation?
A: I am a shift manager at Costco.
Q: Are you married and do have any children?
A: I am not married, I have no children, I have a fiancé, and we hope to start our family within the next five years.
Q: Do you speak any other languages?
A: I speak Spanish.
Q: Tell me a bit about the place where you grew up? How did it affect your life?
A: I grew up in East Houston, Texas. I played baseball in middle school and high school. There was this really big kid that lived down the street, his name was Pansas, which means bellies in Spanish. He used to pick on me and my brothers when we were younger. He was a lot taller and fatter than anyone else on the block, even more than most of the parents. Throughout my late teens and early twenties, I felt defensive towards people taller and fatter than me.
Q: What is something that you experienced in your life that you would consider historical?
A: I served in the U.S. Navy from 1995 to 2000; I served in the U.S. Army from May 2001 to May 2005 and did two tours in Iraq.
Q: Have you ever suffered from discrimination?
A: Some kid called me a “beaner” in the 8th grade.
Q: Tell me how you entered the military service. How and why did you join?
A: I had graduated high school in 1993 and tried to go to college. I failed miserably and lost my financial aid eligibility within a couple of years. I was working at a machine shop that my dad's friend owned. I was earning $6.00 an hour and headed nowhere. My parents were ashamed of me, all their friends' kids doing a lot more with their lives than I was. When I wanted to sleep in on the weekends, my dad would wake me up and start yelling at me for no reason. One day, this guy I went to high school with came by my house to see me, he had joined the Navy and was home on leave. He told me about all the places he had been in only two years, and all the girls he was meeting. I made up my mind right then and there. The next morning I was at the Navy recruiter's office, I told them I wanted to leave that afternoon, but they said I that I would have to wait a few weeks. A month and a half later I was on my way to Great Lakes, Illinois for boot camp.
Q: What were some experiences at boot camp that changed you?
A: During swim training, we had to swim in circles for what they said was 50 meters. The swim instructors told us that if we got tired, or if we got in trouble during the swim to call out for help and they would reach out to us with a long pole for us to grab and they would pull us out of the water. We had been swimming for what seemed like forever. My arms and back were hurting so much; I didn't know how much more I could swim. I heard a guy behind me start screaming that he was getting a cramp in his leg. He cried out for help. He really was scared. The swim instructor moved the pole close to him and instead of helping him, when the recruit tried to grab the pole, the instructor started hitting him with it, and jabbing the pole straight into his face. At first, I thought the instructor was really trying to help him, but then he started yelling, “Swim, Fat ass! Swim!” I could tell that the instructor was hitting him hard because his nose started to bleed, then blood started coming out of his head. At that point, I knew exactly how much more I could swim, as much as I had to to get out of there alive. At the time, I thought I had made a big mistake joining the Navy, I thought, “these people really don't give a shit about us, they want us here to treat us like dogs.” Later, after I had been gotten out of boot camp and into the fleet, and was participating in “real world” missions, I realized that those swim instructors were trying to teach us that in the end, if we're going to survive, we will have to learn to find it in ourselves to want to live. We can't give up every time we feel a little pain, sometimes you just need to say, “F*ck the pain, I want to live!”
