Hector Vega and his wife Leopoldina

“She still thought I was in Iraq.”

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Hector Vega and his wife, Leopoldina, remember the day Hector returned home from war.

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Recorded in New York, NY. Click here for more from Historias.

Hector Vega and his wife Leopoldina

Interview transcript

HV: When I got to the Bronx where I live, I called my wife, I still didn’t tell her I was in the States. She still thought that I was in Iraq. Ah, I live on the first floor. She was in the kitchen and I’m standing underneath my window and I’m speaking to her, I’m talking as if I’m in Iraq and I told her that I had just gotten off the phone with my mother and something happened in the neighborhood, what’s going on? And she goes, “no nothing happened here…

LV: And he said, “yeah my mother said something…

HV: I said, “well look out the window”,

LV: He said look out the window. look out the window…

HV: She look out the window and I’m coming out, my uniform, in crutches,

LV: And I was cooking in this moment

HV: She was cooking…

LV: Spaghetti, and camar

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