Deported veterans, leaving Afghanistan and NSFW banter

This week’s episode of The American Legion Tango Alpha Lima podcast features a range of issues of interest to the veterans and military community.

Leading off, co-host Ashley Gorbulja-Maldonado discusses the tale of Hector Ocegueda, a Marine Corps veteran who had been deported to Mexico nearly a decade ago but was finally able to come home earlier this month. It took nearly a federal lawsuit for to bring Ocegueda home.

Following a conviction for intoxicated driving, he had been deported to Mexico, a country he left with his parents when he was a child. Ocegueda spent the past nine years living in Mexico, but earlier this month he became an American citizen and reunited with his family in California.

“This is a remarkable story; it is also an unfortunate story that we have so many barriers,” Gorbulja-Maldonado said. “I’m glad that the Biden administration is trying to break down some of these walls and barriers.”

The American Legion reaffirmed support for immigrants seeking citizenship through service in a statement for the record submitted to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship and Border Safety ahead of a June 23 hearing on the matter.

Other topics include:

• The ongoing exodus from Afghanistan and a combat correspondent’s near-death experience while on deployment there. The co-hosts address a key question, referring to the 20 years of war following the 9/11 attacks, “What have we ended up with at the end of it?”

• The Air Force defining what a penis is in a two-minute video. The co-hosts … um, you’ll just have to check out the episode to learn how they address the story.  And that leads into …

• How baby Space Marines are made.

Don’t miss this episode. Download and listen on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or view it on YouTube. All of the more than 60 episodes are available on the podcast webpage.