My Father, the Hero

By Karina Colletti

It all started about fourteen years ago when I lived in Argentina with my family. It was time for my dad to come back from the army. He was very happy and couldn’t wait until he got home. I was about one year old. My brother was two or three and my sister was four, going to be five.

My dad had talked to my mom earlier on the phone and told her he was coming home now. She was happy he was going to be back with us.

As soon as he got in his car, two guys appeared on his back seat and one of them pointed a gun at my dad’s head. My dad was so scared he didn’t know what to do. The guys told him to take them where my dad lives and if he took them somewhere else they would kill him and whoever was around. My dad didn’t want to take them to my house but he had no choice.

They rang the bell and my mom opened the door and saw my dad standing there while a guy had the gun to my dad’s head. My mom was scared and my dad just told her to get my sister, my brother, and me. As soon as they came in my mom was standing in the living room holding me in her arms. One of the guys asked my dad to give him all the money he had. If he wouldn’t do what they told him to do they would kill us.

The guy that asked for everything, he said if he didn’t give it to them that they would kill me first. So my dad told the guys that he would give them what they wanted if he let’s my mom and the kids go somewhere else, but they said that we couldn’t leave the house. So my mom took us to the other room and covered the doorway by putting a very big closet in it.

Later on we heard my dad fighting with the guys and all of a sudden we heard a gun shot. My dad shot one of the guys in the leg and broke the other one’s nose. The one with the broken nose ran away while the other one was laying on the floor bleeding. So my dad ran after the guy and beat him up in the middle of the street.

From the other end of the room my mom called the police. They saw my dad beating up the guy and then the guy pulled out another gun from his back and tried to shoot my dad. My dad hit him in the face again and took his gun. My father was about to kill him but the police said that it would be better if he couldn’t do that, it would cause problems. They said they would take care of the guy very well.

Since that day I consider my dad my hero. I thank him for everything he did for us that day. We never found out why did those guys pick my dad. Even though I was too young to remember all that, I’m so happy I’m still alive thanks to my dad.