Destiny has a funny way of kicking you in the teeth. Or in my case, of knocking your teeth out with a jagged chunk of lead that just pierced your cheek like an overzealous Phuket monk.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'm a second generation American, born into a poor family. My father ran a small time butcher shop, catering to the impoverished immigrants that populated the tenements littered Corlears Hook. In my youth, when I wasn't conspiring to avoid both the schoolroom and the street-walking tramps that the neighborhood lent it's name to, I picked up hours at the shop; sweeping floors and making deliveries to our slightly less dirt poor customers. Everything seemed well in place for me to learn the family trade and lead a life of quiet drunken depression, just like my old man.

A path that would probably manifest in years of apathetically hovering in a state of not-quite-starving-to-death before blowing my brains out at the dinner table at the age of fifty, when my wife found out the rent money was going to pay for the illegitimate child I'd had with a seventeen year old Jewish girl whose dad held the lease on our store -- just like my old man.

But my turn at that particular grindstone never came. When I was just old enough to realize that the American Dream didn't apply to us, Uncle Sam came and kicked in our door. He wanted me to wear his clothes, follow his rules, fight his fights. We hadn't been on speaking terms before that. The government took no interest in the lives of our kind, and for the most part the relationship was mutual. We didn't ask for anything, and they didn't give a shit. That all changed when expendable life became a commodity.

They promised direction; a meaning to what would otherwise be a wasteful life full of drudgery. "Come toil for us, and you'll be a part of history!" Whatever. The Marine Corps in my day were nothing but a bunch of hired thugs. Enforcers for American conglomerations, on the government's dime. Hell, it was the first corporate job I ever had. United Fruit decided it wanted to own every banana in the western hemisphere so it was off to Panama. And Cuba. And Nicaragua. And Haiti.

You get the idea.

During this time, Mexico waged war on itself. The Revolution birthed eternal legends in the names of Francisco Villa and Emiliano Zapata. But a lesser known legend, just as true, is that of an Italian-American who exploited his dark complexion to gain influence in the ravaged nation. Ronald Galanti played both sides, feeding information to the rebellion, while arranging to circumvent the American embargo by delivering weapons to the usurper Huerta on German cargo ships. Despite his money-hungry motivations, he earned the loyalty and friendship of the rebels, leading Pancho Villa to bestow him with the nickname "Ron Mexico".

He was long gone by the time we made port in Veracruz under the charge of Smedley Butler. As was most of Huerta's army. We quietly marched on the city as the rich emptied their estates of children and servants and made haste to the west. The poor, with no haven to retreat to, scrambled feebly to arm themselves.

Our objective was simple enough-- secure the train station. Urban warfare was new to us, but nothing we couldn't handle, given our resistance posed mainly by farmers and merchants. Panicked shouts of Spanish met with the cry of jarred children and the hollow popcorn sound of distant gunfire to set the scene to a jarring symphony of affliction.

The depot was an easy mark, relatively neglected by the resistance, who were fighting for their homes and families. It was cleared in mere minutes, and cordoned effortlessly afterward. The Marines offered around ejaculatory self-congratulations, and jokes about Huerta's withdrawal. I didn't care either way, I was just filling a uniform until they told me to go home.

Lacking anything better to do, I lethargically feigned a security patrol, as I was told. For a few hours, we wandered the city block, looking for interesting stuff to shove in our sea bags to take home to ma and pa, and passing around cigarettes. Around my fourth Pall Mall of the hour, we stopped so some jackass could try to make heads or tails of a Mexican newspaper. I leaned against the wall of what appeared to be a bank for a few brief seconds before I found myself on my ass, eyes full of grit and a rising sting in my left cheek.

As the blood poured through the new hole in my head and tooth fragments embedded themselves in my tongue, my gaze met the horrified eyes of a boy, no more than fourteen, peering at me over the shaking barrel of his father's revolver. I raised my rifle to return the favor and the bullet laid him flat on his back. Through the pounding of my heartbeat, the sick wheeze with every one of his labored breaths, and Woodrow Wilson's gun in the harbor, I heard the words rise and hang in the air like the smoke from my half-burned cigarette, which now lay among the dust in the cracked street.

"Destino cambio mi vida. En Veracruz yo muero."

Major Butler got a Medal of Honor for what happened in Veracruz. I got a hack-job patching up, and an ounce of lead in my molars.