Trusted in Iraq, Barred From Cuba

I joined the Army National Guard and proudly served as a combat medic in Iraq, in gratitude to a nation that has given me the opportunity to live my dreams since I arrived here from Cuba on a fragile wooden raft. I also joined to teach my teenage sons in Cuba a lesson about freedom and responsibility, and about how important it is to give back. But since the rules for travel to Cuba were abruptly tightened last summer, my boys are learning a different lesson: that even in America, political calculation can trump human rights, and that a small minority of extremist voices can be enough to keep a family apart.

I risked my life to come to the United States in 1992 for the same reasons immigrants have always come to these shores: to taste freedom, to take advantage of the economic opportunities and to build a better life for the people I cared about.

I have been fortunate; I have been able to realize my dreams. After establishing myself in Miami, I returned to school, earning my counseling certification. I moved to Seattle, where I had a great job counseling people with developmental disabilities.

But when an earthquake struck Washington state and I saw how people pulled together to help one another, I realized that I wanted to help my state and the nation that had given so much to me. At 35, I joined the National Guard.

During this time, I kept in contact with my children in Cuba -- visiting, sending money to support them and following their growth and adventures as best I could. My last trip to Cuba in 2003 was three days of love and roughhousing. We hardly slept, we never stopped smiling. I couldn't wait to see them again.

In November 2003, my Guard unit was called up and I was deployed to Camp Anaconda, north of Baghdad. During my first R & R break, in June 2004, I flew to Miami, where I boarded a charter flight to Cuba. There was a special urgency about this visit. I was serving in a war zone, where U.S. troops were being attacked and killed almost every day.

But I was not allowed to fly to Havana. The Bush administration had recently announced its intention to severely limit travel to Cuba, even for family visits, to once every three years. Even though I arrived in Miami two days before the travel restrictions went into effect on June 30, the charter company said it was not allowed to take any more passengers to Cuba.