DUNGENESS — After 15 months in Iraq, Damian Bujanda couldn’t find peace at home.
He was a U.S. Army specialist who printed maps while traveling across Iraq’s scorched land.
He logged more than 30,000 miles on Iraq roads, through near-constant shelling and enemy fire.
Bujanda, now 24, received an honorable discharge after four years of service.
He said the Army asked him to re-enlist, holding out a $10,000 bonus and a guaranteed six-year posting in Hawaii.
He said no, and returned to Southern California, where he’d spent his teen years.
But he suffered from anxiety attacks, and found it difficult to move through ordinary situations.
“He was struggling; he couldn’t relax,” remembered his mother, Deborah Franco.
Then Bujanda’s young marriage fell apart.
So he’s here, spending time with his mother and pursuing his dream of making music.
In this place, Bujanda said, he’s beginning to heal.
Songs and memories
He recently finished “Damian Deluxe: Fallin’ Soldier,” a CD with 11 tracks of hip-hop in the tradition of the late Tupac Shakur — with an undercurrent of something else.
“Fallin”‘ is not typical rapping. It is Bujanda’s rhythmic poetry, fattened by production effects and keyboards by Jerry Dillon and Jeremy Cays, also Sequim area residents.
The record, produced in Cays’ studio, is available at www.cdbaby.com/cd/damiandeluxe.
“It’s about overcoming struggles, about keeping your head up high,” Bujanda began.
“I want to let people know what the soldier goes through. I try to grab my listeners, put them in my shoes, and show them the battlefield.”
Bujanda left his hometown of Oxnard, Calif., to enter the Army on Jan. 6, 2001.
“I needed college money. I wanted to get my life going,” he recalled. “I was one who needed structure.”
Soon after New Year’s Day 2003, he was sent to Kuwait to prepare for war in Iraq.
In April 2004 Bujanda finished his tour.
Back in the States, he struggled to re-enter his old life.
His daughter Damiora, now 3, had been born while he was overseas.
“My little angel,” Bujanda said, is the light of his life.
She’s the subject of “My Baby,” one of the songs on his CD.
It’s about a soldier’s hope that his child won’t forget him, and that he’ll survive to return home and be a full-time father.
“Making that CD, putting what I feel into a live recording, was the best healing, the best counseling for me,” Bujanda said.
On his CD cover, alongside a picture of a smoldering Bujanda with his hair in corn rows, is a photo of him touching the Vietnam Veterans Memorial replica that came to the 7 Cedars Casino in July.
He feels a bond with all other veterans.
“Whether you’re 80 or 22, we all share the same experience.”
Bujanda celebrated the completion of “Fallin’ Soldier” with a performance Aug. 12 at the New Peking Restaurant in Port Angeles.
“When I heard him doing his sound check, I was kind of stunned,” said New Peking manager Kevin Fong.
Last Tuesday Bujanda brought his songs to karaoke night at Crazy Fish Baja and Beyond in downtown Port Angeles.
Karaoke host Dan Erwin said Bujanda’s was “powerful music.”
“When you’re doing 300 syllables a minute, you can say a lot.”
Bujanda put a “parental advisory” label on his CD since a few of the songs contain profanity and sexual references.
Now at peace
Friends have advised him to go to Los Angeles to promote the record.
But the Peninsula feels right, he said. At the house in Dungeness, Bujanda is at peace.
“I’m happy, the happiest I’ve been in a long time.”
Bujanda received $45,000 in college aid from the Army, and plans to enroll at Peninsula College this fall, and he ‘s also looking for part-time work.
He’ll keep developing his music.
“My next CD is going to be a lot more out of the box,” he said.
He also hopes to become active in veteran groups.
“I’m still a soldier because of what I’ve been through,” he said.
Bujanda has advice for other veterans who are struggling to recover from their wartime experiences.
“Talk about it,” he said. “Don’t hold it inside.”
