Terrified at thought of being on open water at night, vet joined Navy
“I was terrified by the idea of big, open water at night, black water.” —Edwin Hiojos
While growing up in El Paso, Texas, in the “bad part of town,” Edwin Hiojos made it a point to confront his fears. Though he had opportunities to confront most of them, one stayed with him that would be instrumental in determining who he would sign up with when he decided to serve his country in the Armed Forces.
“I was terrified by the idea of big, open water at night, black water,” he said.
He fully realized that El Paso wasn’t anywhere near such a body of water, but still, the idea of such frightened him, so he had to do something about that.
“I joined the Navy in July 1988,” he said.
And over 27 years, he got his chance to confront this fear directly. Originally, he signed up to be in the nuclear field, but ended up washing out of that. So, he reclassed as a Morse code specialist and spent three years in Japan listening in on Soviet signals.
“And then the Cold War ended,” Hiojos said, which opened up opportunity for him. He had spent the tail end of the Cold War listening in on the Russians, so his next pick thematically followed, as he reclassed as a linguist, specializing in the Persian area of operations.
He entered his new career as a Petty Officer 2nd Class (E5) in 1994. His first experiences in the Persian Gulf region saw him in the middle of the post-Gulf War cleanup. Over the next four years, he found himself rotating back and forth between the Persian Gulf region and Washington, D.C.
Since 1988, he had been caught up in a whirlwind of travel. But during one stop-off at an airport in Atlanta, Ga., in 1998, he was having lunch when he heard loud applause and cheers. A group of young Army soldiers in camouflage uniforms were getting ready to catch their plane that would be carrying them to an overseas deployment. The civilians watching them pass through had spontaneously broken out in applause and support.
“I was very impressed and moved,” Hiojos said. “Up to that point, the Middle East deployments had started to feel routine and it seemed like they were being taken for granted. But I saw in that moment at least that that was not the case.”
In 2001, he was training new military linguists at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas. While at that assignment, 9/11 happened.
“I was in class teaching when the news went out,” he said. “I got a phone call from my younger brother. He told me that New York City had been attacked. I didn’t believe it at first, thinking it was an exaggeration. Later, I was watching live TV when the second tower was hit. That left no doubt as to what was going on.”
Hiojos said the training kicked in that point, with everyone going into preparation mode to deploy into war. He immediately put in a request to his branch manager for orders to the Middle East.
“I needed to be there, like most serving in uniform,” he said. “But my branch manager told me no. He said my career field was one of the most needed downrange and instructors like me needed to keep doing what they were doing, preparing young service members to go do this job downrange.”
Hiojos paused, visibly moved at the memory of those service members who came through his class and then subsequently were sent into the conflicts.
“After ‘04, I was sent into the Gulf of Oman area,” he continued. “At the time, the U.S. Navy was dealing with a rash of piracy incidents.”
Hiojos added that he was not impressed with the rules the Navy was operating under when confronting the pirates.
“I saw this during the Clinton administration and under Obama, it was the same. We were under orders that limited our ability to act. We had the ability to wipe out those pirates at any time, but we had been told we could not fire upon them unless they shot at us first, or unless they attacked an American civilian ship and crew. The movie ‘Captain Phillips’ dealt with such a scenario. But those scenarios were the only way we could shoot at the pirates. Otherwise, we were there to just show the colors and look scary.”
In September 2015, Hiojos retired. He then returned to Texas and is now studying for a degree in Organizational Leadership. He will graduate in 2018.
Suffice it to say, he is over his fear of deep, wide, black water.