COMING HOME: Family anticipates decorated veteran’s return

By HEATHER CATHLEEN COX
Staff Writer
reporter@sbnewspaper.com

Army Sergeant E-5 Joshua Barrera

San Benito High School graduate, Joshua Barrera, is returning home Saturday, after a four-year stint serving his country in the United States Army. His family plans to celebrate his arrival by throwing a welcome home party.

Among those planning to welcome Joshua home is his father, Edwin Barrera, who expressed pride in his son’s many accolades. “I’m very proud of him,” Edwin said. “The conditions and heat over there (coupled with) soldiers pretty much having a target on their backs, for soldiers to want to be in infantry, to seek the frontlines – he was not afraid to show bravery for his country. He’s done his part with his patriotism.”

Joshua, who has been in the Army for four years, said he enlisted immediately after finishing high school. “I graduated in 2010 from San Benito High School, and a month later I joined the military and went off to basic training. I did basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia.”

“My duty station was Fort Carson, Colorado,” Joshua said. “In 2011, I deployed to Afghanistan where I did a 12-month tour.” This overseas tour was his first of two.

Joshua returned from Afghanistan in May 2012. He said, at that time, he “did more training exercises (with the Army) in Louisiana and California.”

After extensive training, Joshua said, “I moved up through the ranks to a Sergeant E-5.”

In addition to being promoted at a young age, Joshua also received several recognitions, including the following: NATO Service Award; a Commendation Medal for Meritorious Service in support of Operation Enduring Freedom; Army Achievement Medal as a Bradley Gunner; and an Army Achievement Medal while assigned to Bravo Company.

Finally, in October 2013, Joshua deployed once more. This time, he went to Kuwait. “I did a nine-month tour in Kuwait,” he said, “and four weeks ago, I returned.”

“The most important thing I took away,” said Joshua of his time with the U.S. Army, “was the brotherhood between each soldier, the strong bond you have. That would be the most important. The military instills that (brotherhood) in you.”

Joshua’s family is very excited and happy for the safe return of their hero, Joshua. And perhaps, Joshua is just as eager to come back home and be reunited with loved ones. “I’m pretty excited to see everybody again,” he said.

For Joshua, the best part of coming back home to San Benito will be, “seeing family, seeing everybody again…and home cooked Mexican meals.”

Joshua won’t have too long to be nostalgic at home before leaving to start college. “I’m starting Aug. 21,” he said. The soldier added, “I will be majoring in Criminal Justice at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.”

Joshua isn’t finished with Army life just yet, though. Additional plans for the soldier include, “going into the (Army) Reserves for two or four years,” he said. After graduation, Joshua plans, “to apply for a job in the law enforcement world of some kind.”

On his primary reasoning for joining the military, Joshua expressed, “I had to grow up and do my duty.”  However, as he reflects upon the past four years of his life, he feels somewhat differently. For this soldier, patriotism “is about the other guys fighting with me, on the battlefield.”