A Sergeant's Mission To Return Home To Puerto Rico
Antonio Santini was willing to do anything — as long he got to Puerto Rico. He'd be a perfect asset for the U.S. Army's Hurricane Maria mission: He spoke Spanish and he knew the terrain. The sergeant first class had been all over the world with the military — Germany, Peru, Qatar, Afghanistan — but this mission, to an island devastated by a Category 4 hurricane with 155 mph winds, was "deeply personal."
***
Fifteen hundred miles away, in the mountains of central Puerto Rico, Maria Rivera had survived the hurricane in her two-story house on the hill. Three generations of the family buckled down together as the whole house shook — the roof gave way, windows broke and water gushed in.
Amid the storm's chaos, Rivera was calm. A deeply religious woman, she prayed for her family. For their house. For Puerto Rico. She and her family stayed up through the night, bailing out water from the house. In the days that followed, while Santini was packing in North Carolina, making last minute trips to the commissary on base at Fort Bragg, Rivera watched as their supplies dwindled and the water and power stayed off.
***
Six days after the storm, Santini caught a Boeing C-17 with three dozen soldiers,
