by Jessica Tomhave
Sgt. First-Class Raul Muniz of Sartell has seen the world during his life of military service – California, Okinawa, Texas, Afghanistan, El Salvador, South Carolina, Illinois.
He has gone where duty calls with honor, loyalty and faith. But his dedication is not without great sacrifices – the kind of sacrifices that took him away from family life and his 6-month-old son, from birthdays, holidays and milestones. Muniz will be the first to say those sacrifices have not been borne by him alone. His wife, Myriam, and five children have learned a great deal about adjusting quickly to change and running a household without a partner or dad at home.
Muniz is currently serving as a U.S. Army Sergeant First-Class at Fort Sheridan, Ill. and must commute the six- to seven- hour drive to Sartell about once a month to see his family. He intends to retire from his long military career next year.
Early years
Muniz and his wife are first-generation Americans born and raised in Los Angeles by parents who emigrated from Mexico. Muniz is the youngest of five and the first of his immediate family to join the U.S. Armed Forces.
When he was 7 years old, his future wife moved in only two apartments down from him. Raul’s mother would often say she wished her son would marry Myriam someday, but Myriam paid no mind to young Raul. It wasn’t until they were teens that they struck up a friendship, started dating a few years later and married in 1996 in a quickie wedding.
It was a “quickie” because it was the first of many decisions they would learn to make as a dedicated military family. The wedding took place when Muniz was on leave from boot-camp training.
At first, the couple lived at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center near Twenty-nine Palms, California, the first of 14 places they would call home for the next 27 years.
Joins the Marines
After enlisting in 1996, Muniz went on to serve in the Marines for two consecutive four-year terms. During those eight years of active service, he considered himself and Myriam fortunate to have been stationed near family on two bases in California, Twenty-nine Palms and Camp Pendleton.
The couple’s oldest daughter, Daniela, was born nine months after Muniz’s return from his first overseas tour of duty in Okinawa, Japan. Because of that timing, Daniela carries the title “Marine Brat” proudly, just as their youngest son, Raul, is the “Army Brat” born during Muniz’s time in the Army. The acronym for BRAT is British Regiment Attached Traveler, assigned to families traveling abroad with a soldier.
As his eight years in the Marine Corps were coming to a close, Muniz decided he was satisfied with his accomplishments in the Marines, all except for one thing: He had not served in combat even though he’d been trained in artillery and infantry. Four years later, another call to duty would come. At the height of the war in Afghanistan, Muniz was just beginning civilian life. It was then he was requested to come back and lead his Marine unit in another tour in the Middle East. Because of timing, Muniz had missed his unit’s first tour. After much consideration Muniz declined the offer, knowing he could not leave his family as they were just settling into a new home and ministry work in their church.
Tragic news
One day, while watching news reports of deaths in Afghanistan, two familiar names and faces from his old unit scrolled across the screen. To his wife, he described the responsibility he felt for those soldiers, telling her that if he had stayed in (the Marines) he might have guaranteed they stayed alive. Myriam told him that may be true, or it could have been his face on the TV screen. At that moment Muniz felt incredibly grateful to be standing in his living room. Muniz attended the funeral services for the two Marines who were not only from his old unit but alumni from his high school and raised in the same neighborhood as him.
Joins the Army
After that tragedy struck so close to home, Muniz was riveted by death-toll reports because his heart wanted to be with his guys. Out of his longing to serve and protect and a desire for a military-style camaraderie, Muniz began training to become a sheriff’s deputy for San Bernardino County in California. But at the last moment, Muniz decided to sign up for the Army instead. His wife agreed, feeling safer with him carrying a weapon temporarily in active duty with his unit than daily out on the streets as a deputy.
Afghan service
Eighteen months later, in 2009, he was deployed to serve in Afghanistan. Fortunately, he was able to return home for Thanksgiving from his training in Texas before leaving for Afghanistan.
He served a second Afghan combat tour in 2012, just six months after son Raul Jr. was born. He communicated “back home” by calls and Skype, thus he was able to “attend” virtually Raul’s first birthday party.
After his second one-year tour was finished, he had missed any official welcome-home hoopla due to an extended stay for medical reasons in post-deployment recovery. But Muniz said he received a better welcome than any pomp and circumstance could offer when he saw his wife and kids and their homemade signs waiting for him at the small municipal airport.
To Minnesota
At that time Muniz submitted a request for active duty in the Army. So the family moved from California to Minnesota in 2014 where he has worked at the Army Reserve Center in St. Joseph, then in Buffalo and still later Fort Snelling. In 2021, Muniz was re-assigned to Fort Sheridan, Ill. The family has since resigned themselves to the fact that Muniz would become what’s known in the military as a “geographical bachelor.”
Home in Sartell
For a variety of reasons, including having a senior student at Sartell High School and some health issues, the family decided to remain in Sartell while dad moved to Illinois. That’s when Muniz’s long commutes between Sartell and Fort Sheridan began.
There are five children in the Muniz family: Joseph, 28; Daniela, 24; Rebecca, 19; Isabella, 17; and Raul Jr., 11.
After all the years of moving and spur-of-the-moment disruptions, it doesn’t get easier and it’s not something a military family ever gets used to, but the Muniz family has learned to work through it together – with help from their friends.
Military Network
Muniz said he feels so grateful his family is safe and taken care of in his absence by friends, the local veteran community and their church family. Muniz and his wife are part of a network of people who help one another. In fact, with the encouragement from Myriam and their pastors at The Waters Church in Sartell, Muniz started a group for veterans, service people and their families called the Military Network. Since 2018 the Military Network has hosted a Veterans’ Day event. To learn more about that event, visit The Waters church website. All are welcome to attend the veterans’ event.
After decades of world travel and a legacy of volunteer efforts in the veteran community, Muniz is 10 months away from his own retirement. He will proudly hang up his Army “hat” and humbly continue to wear his heart for service to all veterans and to the people of Sartell where he and his family now call home.
Sgt. First-Class Raul Muniz in full uniform.
In October 2013 at the airport, the jubilant family of Sergeant First-Class Raul Muniz welcome him home from his second tour of combat duty in Afghanistan. From left to right in back row are wife Myriam, SFC Muniz holding youngest child Raul Jr., 16 months; and Daniela, 14. In the front row (left to right) are Rebecca, 9; and Isabella, 7.
During his second tour of combat duty in Afghanistan (circa 2012) SFC Raul Muniz had his wrist painted with henna designs by a group of Afghan children. This photo was taken at the weekly bazaar in the city of Kabul. The children would sell bracelets and then paint the hands and wrists of soldiers.
