Marine’s dream was born in Moscow

There's an interesting story in the Columbus Dispatch today about a Russian kid who came to the United States in September 2001 at age 15, spoke no English, but later became a Marine.

Alexey Gvenetadze had never seen someone as tough as that Marine guarding the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

The 14-year-old’s mother had married an American she’d never seen until just before the wedding. Mother and son were standing in line for visas to the United States. Alexey didn’t want to leave his friends. But then he saw that Marine.

"He freezed when he saw him," said his mother, now Elena Kumbrasova Burnett. "He said, ‘Can I go and look at him one more time?’ "

She was ready to marry a stranger, to leave her family and friends in Nizhny Novgorod. She wasn’t counting on her son’s wanting to join the Marines.

She had married, in part, to get Alexey out of Russia and away from mandatory military service. For years, she’d gone to doctors, telling them he’d wet the bed, hoping for some medical excuse she could give to the government.

"I just want peace in my life," Elena said.

But he’d seen that Marine. And as it turned out, he wouldn’t find his real place in the United States until he became one himself.

The story goes on to explain how Alexey's mother met her father - not quite a mail order bride, they met through mutual friends who had used a Russian-American dating service.

Elena and Alexey, by then calling himself Alex, arrived in the United States at the end of September that year, just after the terrorist attack. The attack would eventually lead to a war in Iraq, where Marines would go to fight.

At 15 years old, Alex started at Westerville South. He didn’t even know the English alphabet. He learned it, but not happily.

"He seemed very lonely," said Carole Dardamanis, who teaches English-as-a-second-language classes at Westerville South. She was Alex’s favorite.

"I remember talking to his mother and saying something was missing. He just seemed so solemn."

Alex stayed that way for two years. Then, one day when he was a senior, he met a Marine recruiter at school. He remembered what that Marine at the embassy had looked like. His entire personality changed.

He walked and talked differently. He started working out so he could pass the physical requirements. He asked Dardamanis to tutor him for the military entrance test.

"He had such purpose," the teacher said. "He had found his place in his new culture. . . . He was an all-American kid."

Elena didn’t like it, but she wasn’t worried. He wouldn’t be able to pass the English test, she thought. But he did. Then she thought he couldn’t pass the physical test, but he did that, too.

"I told him, ‘You don’t have to fight for America. It’s your adopted country,’ " she said. "Look at all these happy people around with jobs and girlfriends who aren’t fighting."

He answered, "Maybe if we weren’t in Iraq, they wouldn’t be so happy."

That's cool. It took this kid just three years in America to realize that some things are worth fighting for. Why have so many others who have lived here all their lives still not had the same realization?

(Here's the link - but you have to be a subscriber.)