U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Jiratat Rattanawimon, a logistics embarkation specialist, Marine Wing Support Squadron 172, is a Thai-American now serving in the U.S. Armed Forces and is supporting exercise Cobra Gold 19 at Phra Maha Jetsadaratchao Camp, U-Tapao, Kingdom of Thailand, February 2019. “I was born in 1996, May 14, in Los Angeles, California. I lived there for six years, but I didn’t really get a chance to grow up in LA. My parents stayed together for about a year after I was born, and my father went back to live in Bangkok. As for my mother, being a single mother, she couldn’t really take

U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Jiratat Rattanawimon, a logistics embarkation specialist, Marine Wing Support Squadron 172, is a Thai-American now serving in the U.S. Armed Forces and is supporting exercise Cobra Gold 19 at Phra Maha Jetsadaratchao Camp, U-Tapao, Kingdom of Thailand, February 2019. “I was born in 1996, May 14, in Los Angeles, California. I lived there for six years, but I didn’t really get a chance to grow up in LA. My parents stayed together for about a year after I was born, and my father went back to live in Bangkok. As for my mother, being a single mother, she couldn’t really take  Stock Photo
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U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Jiratat Rattanawimon, a logistics embarkation specialist, Marine Wing Support Squadron 172, is a Thai-American now serving in the U.S. Armed Forces and is supporting exercise Cobra Gold 19 at Phra Maha Jetsadaratchao Camp, U-Tapao, Kingdom of Thailand, February 2019. “I was born in 1996, May 14, in Los Angeles, California. I lived there for six years, but I didn’t really get a chance to grow up in LA. My parents stayed together for about a year after I was born, and my father went back to live in Bangkok. As for my mother, being a single mother, she couldn’t really take care of me because there was no one else to watch me when she went to work. We didn’t have any relatives in the U.S., so she said since I speak Thai, she would send me back to live with my grandmother in Bangkok. When I went back to Thailand, my father was involved for a bit. But he eventually met someone else and sort of left me behind. You could say I was a rebel in my younger years, because I used to get in trouble here and there. Like, I would skip school and wouldn’t do my homework. So, my grandmother would discipline me with spankings every time until I learned my lesson, haha, and know not to go down that path. She’s the sweetest and kindest person I’ve ever met, and every time she would discipline me, she would go hide and cry because I guess it hurt her more than me getting spanked. I respect her more than anyone. After a while, I developed an urge to see my mom again. Most of my family here in Thailand thought I would have a better education in the States, and I was already a U.S. citizen, so why not go back and take that chance to go to good schools? In Thailand, everything is a competition. You have to test-in to go to a certain high school and you even have to test-in just to take a certain class. It was very hard to leave my grandmother, because she was both a father figure and a mother figure. If I ever get to see her again, that would be great. By