To the naked eye, the village of Tacuba, in western El Salvador,
resembles any other isolated, poor Central American mountain village defined by timelessness and obscurity. Mangy dogs lounge lazily near rutted roads stirring only when a rare vehicle rumbles by, and only the roosters who crow at daybreak seem eager for another day of poverty and struggle to begin. The affairs of the outside world would appear to have little bearing here.
Yet this remote outpost near the Guatemalan border has not been isolated from President George W. Bush’s war on terrorism. Having joined the United States-led “coalition of the willing,” El Salvador’s president, Antonio Saca, has sent a force of 380 soldiers to fight in Iraq. Nearly 10 percent of them hail from the rural towns of Tacuba and Guaymango near Ahuachapan — three hours by travel in rickety “chicken busses” west of the capital, San Salvador, and almost impossible to locate on my map without a microscope.
Even though Saddam Hussein never posed a threat to Central America, and the national security of the United States is a concern only to those Salvadorans lucky enough to survive the harrowing migratory journey to “El Norte,” some 35 local boys have fought side-by-side with the American armed forces near Najaf, north of Baghdad.
