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4 | July 20, 2017 | The Mokena Messenger news mokenamessenger.com Village of Mokena Board of Trustees Trustees, chamber recognize Fourth of July parade organizer Jon DePaolis Freelance Reporter Mokena resident Cindy Gamboa may have been at the July 10 Village of Mokena Board of Trustees meeting to celebrate the accomplishments of those who participated in the annual Fourth of July parade. But it was her own accomplishments as the longtime chairwoman of the Mokena Chamber of Commerce parade that were on the minds of others. Gamboa was recognized with a plaque from the chamber, as well as a proclamation by the Village Board that noted her 20 years of service to making the Fourth of July parade a continued success. After the proclamation was read, Mayor Frank Fleischer thanked Gamboa for her efforts and commented on how smoothly the parade is run each year. “That doesn’t happen by accident,” Fleischer said. “That’s the work that you put in, and you’ve done a heck of a job over the years. I thank you, as well as the Village Board thanks you, for all the time and work you’ve put in.” Gamboa said her love for the parade began when she was younger. “The parade has been around longer than any of us know,” she said. “It’s been around forever, and it’s a great memory from my childhood. That’s why my whole family gets involved and works on the parade. We hope that it is a great memory for the generations to come, even after all of us are gone.” Before being honored, Gamboa did the same for the various businesses who won awards for their float entries. She also thanked the three judges of this year’s parade — Teri Buxbaum, Tony Kroll and Kelly Quigley. This year’s parade theme Round it up A brief recap of action and discussion from the July 10 meeting of the Village of Mokena Board of Trustees. • An agenda item on a proposed adjustment to elected officials’ salary was tabled by the Village Board in a 6-0 vote. No discussion was had on the item. • Later in the meeting, Village Board members voted 6-0 to rezone the property at 11225 Front St. from C-1 (Traditional Shopping) to C-4 (Traditional Downtown Commercial). As part of the consent agenda, trustees voted 6-0 to approve a Downtown Façade Improvement Grant for the same applicant. was “Celebrating Our Milestones,” and the winner of the Best Float award was Grace Fellowship Church. “Every year, we pick three different judges, and every year they are just three different people from the community, who come out to judge,” Gamboa said. “But every year, Grace Fellowship still wins Best Float. “This is their 10th year in a row for winning, so we’re going to have to give them a legacy award or something. They are a great bar to reach for, so I hope that everybody will reach for that, because it enhances all of our experiences with the parade.” Fleischer fired up Before the conclusion of the Village Board meeting, Fleischer brought up to the Village Board members that he intends to work over the course of the next year to penalize residents who light off fireworks in Mokena. He mentioned possibly ticketing individual residents or even Mokena Chamber of Commerce Fourth of July Parade Chairperson Cindy Gamboa (left) accepts a proclamation from Mayor Frank Fleischer and a plaque from the chamber to commemorate Gamboa’s 20 years of organizing the parade. The ceremony was held during the Village of Mokena Board of Trustees’ meeting Monday, July 10. Photos by Jon DePaolis/22nd Century Media 2017 Mokena Chamber of Commerce Fourth of July parade winners • Judge No. 1 Choice: P.A.W.S. Tinley Park • Judge No. 2 Choice: LincolnWay Community Bank • Judge No. 3 Choice: John Boska • Chamber Executive Director’s Choice: Mokena Community Public Library District • Best in Keeping with the Theme: The Crowhurst family • Most Creative Advertisement of a Business: CrossFit Mokena • Best Float: Grace Fellowship Church locations where fireworks are being shot off. “Something has to be done with this, and it is getting completely out of hand,” Fleischer said. “My house is shaking three times a day, for God’s sake. The stuff that is being shot off is ridiculous, and it’s completely out of hand now.” Fleischer said he would keep the board members updated on progress, and that there had been a number of calls made to the Village about fireworks. “I want to talk to staff about the possibility of setting up a hotline,” Fleischer Mokena Fire Protection District Fire Chief Howard Stephens speaks about the parade during the meeting. The fire district was the grand marshal of the Fourth of July parade and has been celebrating its centennial all year. The Grace Fellowship Church float, which won the Best Float award, makes its way down Wolf Road during the Fourth of July parade. Photo Submitted said. “It’s not like it was years ago where you had a few firecrackers here or there. People are shooting off dangerous, dangerous fireworks. This is not a game. “If one of these fireworks landed in front of somebody’s child or by somebody’s house, someone could get really hurt. As dry as it was this year, we’re just lucky as hell that we didn’t have a fire. “Something has got to be done, because enough is enough.”
mokenamessenger.com news the Mokena Messenger | July 20, 2017 | 5 Semper Fi: Marine faithfully helps fellow wounded veterans Jon DePaolis Freelance Reporter The grenade hurled by an insurgent in Iraq couldn’t stop Mike Mendoza. So, a Guinness World Record should be a walk in the park — or, rather, a 70.3-mile swim, bike, run in the park. Mendoza, a Mokena resident and veteran of the United States Marine Corps, is attempting to break the record for most completed half Ironman races in a single year — all while raising money for the Semper Fi Fund, a program that provides financial aid to wounded veterans. It’s something that means quite a bit to the Purple Heart and Navy Cross recipient. After all, he too is a wounded veteran. Trouble arises in a combat zone From a very young age, Mendoza knew he wanted to serve his country. “That seed was planted in my head a long time ago,” he said. “It could have been from watching “Rambo” movies or playing G.I. Joe in the backyard.” Mendoza joined up in 1997, attending boot camp and School of Infantry. He became “a grunt,” an infantryman and deployed to Okinawa and then to Thailand all before his 19th birthday. During those first few years, Mendoza enjoyed visiting and learning about other countries and cultures. But his time in the Marines changed dramatically after 9/11. For troops, it stopped being about just training to be proficient at their jobs. Added to the mix was now being able to execute missions. “Lives were now on the line,” Mendoza said. In 2004, he was deployed on his first combat tour — sent to Fallujah, a city in the province of Al Anbar in Iraq. He stayed there for nine months. After returning home, he trained a reserve unit in Chicago for deployment. Then, he redeployed to Fallujah in 2006 — this time as a sniper. It was on that tour that his injury was sustained. Despite it being more than a decade later, he remembers it vividly. He was on the outskirts of Fallujah on a mission to find and counter improvised explosive devices and other bombs, as well as “finding bad guys.” At about 2 a.m., his unit was engaged by insurgents. “During the middle of the firefight, as a lot of bullets were flying, a grenade happened to land right next to me,” Mendoza recalled. “It exploded and hit me and two other Marines.” In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, Mendoza didn’t know he was hurt. “All I felt was the concussion of the grenade,” he said. “You feel the pressure. I was in a two-story building, and the noise just bounced off the walls. But I really didn’t know I was hurt. I was in a daze.” But minutes later, he started having difficulty breathing. Mendoza went to his radio operator and called for a quick reaction force, shortened to a QRF, and noted two wounded in action — a WIA. Soon after, the radio operator looked at Mendoza and said, “You got blood on you, bro.” Mendoza didn’t think it was his own, but he grabbed a flashlight, took off his shirt and saw that he was bleeding from his left side. The grenade blast and shrapnel had penetrated his skin and done serious internal damage. Mendoza said he went Mike Mendoza finishes a leg of one of his half Ironman races. The Mokena resident plans to complete 25 half Ironman races, which would break the current Guinness World Record of 23, in an attempt to raise $25,000 to donate to Semper Fi Fund, which helped his family when he was wounded in Iraq. Photo Submitted back on the radio and updated the situation — there were now three WIA. When the unit was extracted, Mendoza was taken to a casualty aid station to determine the extent of his injuries. “I remember them putting like an ultrasound over my chest and my stomach, kind of like they have for babies,” he said. “The [doctor] pointed at the screen and at some dark spots. He said, ‘That’s all pooling up. You’re bleeding inside somewhere.’” Next, Mendoza was put on a helicopter and taken to Baghdad for emergency surgery. “By then, I was really having trouble breathing, and they were having trouble intubating me,” Mendoza recalled. “I remember even praying for myself. I kept saying, ‘I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t breathe.’ And I was trying to calm myself down, because if I could slow my heart rate down, I wouldn’t struggle as much.” In those moments, his mind focused on two things. First, he remembered a former captain of his getting hit in the same spot he was hit — right underneath the armpit on the side. The captain didn’t survive. Second, Mendoza remembered his friend, Eddie, who also had been seriously injured on a mission. Eddie said he was able to relax and calm his heart rate, and he lived. “There’s nothing much you can really do,” Mendoza said of that moment. “I can slow my heart rate down and think of positive things. But I also put my trust into the surgeons. That’s all you can do, pretty much.” Mendoza survived, but his journey was just beginning. Helping heal others’ wounds Today, most would not know that Mendoza is a wounded veteran — certainly not anyone watching him complete Ironmans and marathons. But under the surface, Mendoza does have his challenges. He still has shrapnel inside of him. “Every once in a while, I will feel something,” he said. “It feels like a cramp on my left side, but it’s not a cramp. It’s the shrapnel, which is surrounded by scar tissue — rubbing against my diaphragm and rib cage.” But Mendoza said he feels grateful, because some of his friends and other veterans sustained injuries much worse than his own. Mendoza also benefits from possessing a personality trait that doesn’t just let him sit around. For Mendoza, it’s all or nothing — whether that is his dedication to his service or his family, or how he approaches a sport or activity. That led him to success in high school as a threesport athlete (cross country, wrestling and track) at Rich South. Most recently, it has helped in his pursuits with the half Ironman races. He started doing those in 2016 after a friend named Steve introduced him to the races. His first was in Chicago. “I ended up actually winning my age group,” said Mendoza, who also placed in the Top 10 overall. “Not bad for being a rookie.” And from that success came an idea. While recovering from his injuries in 2007, Mendoza was introduced to the Semper Fi Fund. The organization set up his wife and children with money to help with costs, as well as housing near the hospital. Even after he left the hospital, Mendoza said Semper Fi Fund checked in on him. “Even now, I remember getting a couple of Christmas ornaments [from them],” he said. “There is no way to explain the gratitude on my end.” Over the years, Mendoza reached out to the Semper Fi Fund to try and give back. Now, he had a way. The organization set up a webpage that he could use to raise money for the organization. “Every penny that is donated will go to a service member,” Mendoza said. And to help raise that money, Mendoza decided to go to the extreme. He was sitting at home one night last year, and he wondered aloud to his wife, Kelly, what the record was for most completed half Ironman races in a single year. It was 23. In order to raise money for Semper Fi Fund, he plans to complete 25. As of the interview, Mendoza had completed 12 races. His goal is to raise $25,000 — an amount that sounds like a lot, but in terms of the cost for athletic appendages or cycling chairs for wounded veterans is actually quite small. Those devices can cost tens of thousands of dollars. “I always try to put myself in my buddies’ shoes,” he said. “I was very active when I was younger. If I lost one or both of my legs, I would still want to run.” For those interested in donating and following along with his quest to break the world record, Mendoza’s webpage is www.thepatrio tracer.com.
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