Local Soldier Home For The Holidays--Finally
MIAMI (CBS4) -- There's no place like home for the holidays. Just ask Oscar Ramos, a local soldier who's spending Christmas with his South Florida family.
Ramos has been serving in the Army National Guard, and is not expected to deploy again anytime soon. It has been a homecoming long overdue, he said.
"It's been a long journey coming home," Ramos said.
Ramos has spent four years in the military, and for the last year, he was stationed in Kuwait running missions into Iraq as a Private First Class.
"Every day, you wake up every morning thanking God," he said.
And since last week, Ramos has awakened in his new Miami apartment. Life has been hectic since he arrived on Tuesday. He has not even had time to unpack.
On Christmas Day, he was getting ready to watch the Heat game with his longtime friends and family.
His brother, Manny Mayorga, worried about his brother every day.
"It was kind of hard. We didn't know if he was going to come back," Mayorga said.
But he did come back and his mother could not be happier.
"I'm very, very, very, proud," she said.
Why was Ramos so willing to sacrifice time away from family and friends? It was the principle, he said.
"You want to put that uniform on with integrity. You know you're fighting, not only for that name you wear on your chest, but also for that country on your sleeve," Ramos said.
While Ramos does not expect to go back to war, he says he does expect to continue to improve himself by spending lots of time at school working on his next big adventure in criminal justice.
