Although the Saints defeated the Jets 30-9 on Sunday, a local “gang green” die-hard’s day was made regardless.
The fan in question: a Marine recruiter out of the Smithtown Office’s 145 Main Street address.
Before he was Sgt. Bazan-Bergamino, Carlos, 25, of Nesconset and a Hauppauge Class of 2014 graduate, was once a 17-year-old caddy at the Huntington Crescent Club sneaking in a nap at the cart shack before a busy day of work. Then, a “cold call” changed his life forever.
Early Life
Soon to be a senior and captain for the Winter and Spring Track and Field teams at Hauppauge High School, the ultra-charismatic friend to all had made it a long way from the sixth-grade school year he spent speaking to barely no one.
After moving from his native Peru to the US with his family on December 27, 2007, his 12th birthday, Bazan-Bergamino privately worked on bettering his English before ultimately earning a summer-long crash course by way of subtitled Hannah Montana marathons.
Fast forward three years later: he’s a high school freshman outperforming upperclassmen in the push-up/pull-up challenge Marine recruiters set up in front of the cafeteria commons area. Another three, and Bazan-Bergamino’s now allowed the same recruiter who logged his name “way back when” to sell him on becoming more directly involved with what he had always been incredibly intrigued by.
“After seeing Flags of Our Fathers (2006) in Spanish dubs before I even learned to speak English, I knew I needed to raise the flag one day too. After seeing the community in this country, and how they’d welcomed me immediately.. the thing that got me (to sign up) the most, actually, was the people; realizing I wanted to protect the same people who protected me.”
Thankfully, for Bazan-Bergamino, a sense of community and teamwork from a competitive and physically-demanding standpoint was instilled in him when he believed he needed it most.
High School Track & Field
“I had a tendency to fool around a bunch early on, but joining Track my sophomore year was what set me straight,” he recalled. “My coach Mr. Maida printed a list of all the fastest sprinters in our grade, and when a senior captain saw my name at number one, he asked ‘who’s this guy?,’ then found me and said, “you’re one of us now.”
Participating in league and county championships, and attending the New Balance National Invitationals brought out a confidence and grit the jokester-turned-standout athlete never knew he had. Moreover, it taught him the value in not only meeting expectations, but far exceeding them at all possible chances, because “you never know who’s watching.”
Boot Camp Boost
Any military member has a story, or several, to share. As much as Bazan-Bergamino could justifiably talk down about a Drill Sergeant whose job criteria is to verbally accost him, all he can genuinely think to reflect on is the positive effect such figures have always had on him.
After failing to retrieve mail sent to him by his Grandpa from Peru in a timely manner, to the chagrin of his superior officers, Bazan-Bergamino felt the heat from his drill instructor, especially – who then promptly ordered him to run “more than football field’s length” as punishment.
He sprinted the distance outlined, then waited by a doorway for his also-running instructor – who was further behind than either anticipated, and screaming at him the whole time too.
“He was gassed,” Bazan-Bergamino remembered. “On the drive to the post office, he started asking me, ‘How’d you get so fast?’ He asked me, ‘What are you doing here? You should be in college running.’ It was my first real conversation with him. So I told him, ‘I want to be here, there’s nothing else I want to do.’ And he, this man who usually showed no emotion other than anger, said, ‘well, you’re going to do great.’ It was a much-needed ‘welcome’ pat on the back. Even after he continued to treat me like what I was accustomed to, I knew from this one moment we shared that he respected me.”
Coming Home Again
From Parris Island, South Carolina boot camp, to Hawaii – first as a motor transport operator, then a provost marshal police officer, a role through which he met then-President Trump and the Secret Service, to San Diego, Germany, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and a fleet 50 miles south of Iran, Bazan-Bergamino’s constantly-changing compass never seemed to point home; until it did.
Assigned to the Smithtown Recruitment Office, he’s home for the next four years, and couldn’t be happier.
“Honestly, everything about New York and Long Island is great,” Bazan-Bergamino declared. “I’ve been away from it for 7 years, so obviously, coming back I have a bagel. Next day, I have a bagel, and the next day and the next day. Non-stop bagels for my entire 30-day vacation (upon first returning); shamelessly even bought another 24 to eat across the next 24 days. It was a dream,” the Sergeant with nearly half a year’s recruiting under his belt humorously quipped.
Hitting “the 631” ground running by frequenting every bagel shop in the township was but a temporary battery recharge before becoming all-consumed by his latest new chapter: finding not just the next Sgt. Bazan-Bergamino, but four year’s worth of them.
“Now that I’m home, it feels great to see it through the eyes of a grown man, not a 17-year-old’s. Someone whose job it is to find today’s “me’s;” to save them from not having a clue what they wanted to do with their lives like I once did.
“What I tell my recruits: whatever they decide, it won’t affect my life – but it will affect yours. And I had a young man today, he said he doesn’t know what to do, ‘What if boot camp is too tough? What if I don’t make it?’ I said, ‘Put it this way: all you have to do at first is three months of boot camp. So that’s three months of pain, for a lifetime of glory – because they can never take that (completing boot camp) away from you.
He looks at me and says… ‘that changes everything.’ Now, he can’t stop texting me, thanking me. Says I got him there. But it was all him realizing what the Marines can do for him, and what he can do for them.”
Flag Unfurling
When his office tabbed him to represent the “few and the proud” at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, Bazan-Bergamino didn’t hesitate.
“I’ve been a fan ever since my mom got me a Jets lanyard for my first keychain when we moved here,” said Bazan-Bergamino. “And they were actually good at the time too, going to back-to-back AFC championships. I didn’t know any better. But Mark Sanchez is still a personal hero. He taught me and every other Hispanic kid that we could be good at Football.”
As for helping unfurl the field-length flag alongside other active military members, Veterans and their guests during the National Anthem prior to Jets v. Saints, Bazan-Bergamino considered the experience “truly nuts.” He recalled a guest particularly being stricken “in the best way” by a commanding officer’s unsanitized exclamation on the group’s trek back in during the “fold-up” process: “grab as you go, it (the Flag) cannot touch the ground!”
“When the high note hit, we started shaking the flag,” Bazan-Bergamino recalled, “and I was so emotional, my body froze, I couldn’t move. I was barely shaking it in the end; it was intense, thinking back, with the fireworks and all. Everyone was smiling, but the older Veteran in a US Army jacket caught my eye while his started tearing up. Afterward I shook his hand, and gave him a hug. What a moment.”
Friends, Family, Future
Though Bazan-Bergamino describes his early high school self as a “hooligan,” his oldest friends argue he was anything but.
“He was always funny and charismatic, and brought a great energy, but was certainly never irresponsible and always the most dependable guy in the room,” said Jon Andrews, 24, a friend since childhood and fellow 2014 graduate of Hauppauge, “and still is. He’s got a uniform now, and a new outlook, but Carlos never changed, and that’s what’s the best thing about him.”
Bazan-Bergamino credits his wife of three years with keeping him grounded during their early-to-mid-20s that’s been defined by overseas detours, coastal shifts, and now, as Bazan-Bergamino described it, “Covid America.”
He and Candace Mannino, 25, of Nesconset and a Smithtown East 2014 graduate, first met in 8th grade, then reconnected on a multi-friend camping trip in 2015 just before Bazan-Bergamino’s first deployment.
“Since that day, I’ve never thought about anything else other than her,” Bazan-Bergamino said. “We got engaged in 2017 on top of the tallest base in Hawaii, overlooking Pearl Harbor and Aloha Stadium. Married in 2018. She graduated from Stony Brook on a Friday, we got married on a Sunday, and by Wednesday we were in California. It was a very hectic week, but I’d do it all over again. I wouldn’t do anything without her. She held it down during Covid while I was gone. She holds it down everyday at home. She makes me happy, and she makes me smile.”
“(Candace) changed my life, and my first recruiter, he changed my life. And I can’t wait to change lives too.”
By all calculations, he already has.
Interested in joining the Marines through the Smithtown Recruiting Substation? Contact their newest career counselor Sergeant Carlos Bazan-Bergamino by emailing [email protected] or on Instagram @Smithtown_Marines.
