Cesar âRicoâ Rodriguez described his youthful home as, âWhere we unpacked our luggage.â An admitted military brat, Rodriguez was born in El Paso, Texas, at Ft. Bliss, the son of a career Army soldier. He recalled, âMy father was Puerto Rican and my mother was Cuban. We spent a lot of time in Puerto Rico when my father deployed to places like Thule, Greenland. When people ask me my roots, I use the analogy of the Saguaro Cactus. It grows a couple of inches per year; its roots are not deep but very wide to absorb nutrients. Well, military kids grow wide roots quickly at a new base; we learn a lot, even though we sometimes act like we donât like it, we were ahead of other kids. I mean, when the teacher mentions a country or unfamiliar location, we could say, âHey, I was there.â We were global children, and my family still is. Our son is in Barcelona as an architect and our daughter just returned from a deployment to Korea.â