Gonzalez aids efforts for K9s for Vets and the Forgotten Warrior Memorial

Hugo Gonzalez, a 13-year U.S. Marines veteran, hasn’t stopped his work for veteran causes just because he’s officially retired from his service.

He’s since become active with the Grundy County Marine Corps. League, K9s for Veterans and the Forgotten Warrior Memorial.

“I was a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none,” Gonzalez said of his time in the military. “I went in to be a driver and vehicle operator, and they trained me as a mechanic. I traveled to North Carolina for training and started active duty at Camp Pendleton.”

He learned to be a mechanic at the Great Lakes Naval Station before becoming a recruiter. As it turns out, Gonzalez was a pretty good recruiter.

He likes to talk and he likes getting to know people. Recruiting was a good fit for him. It was a much better fit than boot camp, at least.

“Boot camp was not a friendly environment,” Gonzalez said. “They’re trying to teach and you know, they ask everyone first if they’re a strong swimmer and tell them to go first. The ones who aren’t go at the end.”

Gonzalez learned to swim around the time his drill sergeant told him to jump into the water.

“It’s not the best learning environment, but I made it,” Gonzalez said. “I mean, I’m no Olympian but I passed that hurdle. It was a unique experience.”

After his discharge, Gonzalez has jumped around to odds-and-ends jobs before ending up working for Comcast. Now he’s working in utility locating.

He’s relatively new to the Grundy County area, but he started getting involved in veterans organizations when he moved there. He serves as the judge advocate for the Marine Corps league, and he’s also on the executive committee for the Plainfield American Legion. Most recently, he’s become involved with K9s for Veterans and the Forgotten Warrior Memorial.

Gonzalez since has become the race director for the Memorial 5K in Channahon.

“I wanted to help veterans and be more involved with being a veteran, myself,” Gonzalez said. “I think we like to surround ourselves with people that we know.”

His journey there started at the Grundy County Courthouse. The man working the metal detector noticed Gonzalez’s Marine Corps shirt and told him about the league. Gonzalez has now been involved for 10 years.

He said he enjoys the work the league does raising money for scholarships, pitching in to help with car shows, doing what they can to get children involved and a lot more. Gonzalez is a parent and said he’s learning how to fill the spare time now that his kids are older.

Setting up the Forgotten War Memorial 5K is one way he stays busy, and he had more than 300 runners sign up for the first race back in April.

“Seeing how folks from everywhere wanted to help the cause – the memorial is unfortunately for those veterans who succumb to their PTSD,” Gonzalez said. “Seeing strangers coming just to support that, as a veteran, it feels good knowing that you know folks still care. Unfortunately, the government doesn’t do the best on that, but that’s what the community is all about.”

Of Gonzalez’s time in the military, he has one memory that sticks out. It took place at Country Thunder, a music festival in Wisconsin. Gonzalez was there on recruiting duty, and the late singer Toby Keith invited a bunch of the military members on stage.

“My buddy and I are looking at each other, and I asked if he had his dress blues with him,” Gonzalez said. “He did, so we went back to the hotel and changed into our dress blues. We’re getting to walk along the catwalk and people keep trying to shake our hands, and everyone kept getting louder as we got on stage. It was a unique and proud experience for myself, to experience something like that. The fact that Toby Keith had that kind of respect for us. He was always like that. Rest in peace, you know.”