Memorial Day 2025: One veteran's endless wars
Tristan Gomez checks all the boxes of a Hollywood leading man: boardroom confident, movie-star handsome, Southern Ivy-educated.
He's also fought, won and lost real battles – from enemy-fired rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) to the ravages of cancer.
'It's just what we do,' he said.
The unassuming hero is currently serving in the Volunteer State Community College Office of Adult Learners and Veteran Affairs. An impressive wall of military medals is the only nod to his steadfast commitment to his country. His easy demeanor belies his many struggles.
Opinion: Memorial Day invites me to reflect on the honored dead and on my future military service
In her book, 'Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,' Isabel Wilkerson wrote, '...we are all born into a silent war-game; the team uniform . . . signaling our presumed worth and potential.' That describes Tristan's early life.
Born in Las Vegas and raised in Virginia, Tristan's Mexican-German team uniform was brown, poor and dysfunctional, with a single mom at the helm. At age 16, Tristan left home and interned at an architecture firm. After high school graduation he enlisted with the Army, fulfilled his one-year military commitment, and married at the age of 19. He moved his family to Las Vegas and soon joined the National Guard.
His first tour in active combat was in Detainee Operations in Iraq, processing and transporting detainees to and from combat zones. His return to family life was emotionally difficult.
Little did he know that the emotional strain of his Middle East deployments would soon be overshadowed by even greater physical challenges – effects of his exposure to burn pits.
'We would burn everything,' he said, 'from feces to biohazardous materials and medical waste.'
Tristan first became aware of a problem while at Fort Campbell in Clarksville, when unexplained fatigue, pain, and enlarged testicles began to plague him. Self-medication with ibuprofen and physician-prescribed antibiotics offered no improvement.
Later, the results of an ultrasound were devastating: testicular cancer.
Within 30 days of surgery, Tristan's cancer progressed from Stage 1 to Stage 4, metastasizing to his stomach, lungs, liver, and collar bone, and leaving him with only a four percent chance of survival. The doctors were baffled by the cancer's rapid spread throughout his body.
Following an unsuccessful clinical trial in Texas, Tristan returned home to Nashville and started salvage chemotherapy treatments, a procedure that wipes out the entire immune system. A spot on his liver required liver resection surgery, removal of 20% of his liver, and a sterile living environment.
While in Nashville, Tristan stayed at a local hotel and submitted an insurance claim to offset the cost. Tricare denied it, but the American Cancer Society provided him a room in their hotel.
Between 2007 and 2020, the Veterans Administration denied benefits to nearly 80% of veterans like Tristan who claimed burn pit exposure-related disease. It is unknown if the military was aware of the dangers inherent from those pits.
More: Vanderbilt study: Veterans with depression face higher risk of heart failure
But growing scientific evidence linking burn pit exposure with a variety of cancers led the US Department of Veteran Affairs to sign the PACT Act into law in August 2022, making it easier for veterans like Tristan to receive benefits.
Today, Tristan focuses his energy on healing and family life. With his wife's encouragement, he applied to Vanderbilt University and will receive his Master's in Legal Studies this year. Meanwhile, his current job at Volunteer State Community College allows him to focus on ways to help veterans who are in similar situations.
He uses various healing methods to mitigate the always-present pain, but his military bent often prevents him from displaying what he feels inside.
Today he's winning the battle, and though the future is unpredictable, one thing is not: He will soldier on.
Says Tristan, 'It's just what we do.'
Gwen Swan is a freelance writer for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Tennessean, St. Louis American, and other national publications.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Memorial Day 2025: One veteran's endless wars | Opinion
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